


The Real Housewives of Storybrooke

by boarsnsmores



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Florist/Tattooist AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2018-12-21 06:13:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 26,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11938014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boarsnsmores/pseuds/boarsnsmores
Summary: “...Is that a Yelp review?” She asks, skeptical.“Worse.” Snow says, “It’s a Yelp listicle.”“...a what?”“An article but in list form because readthrough numbers go up when content is broken into smaller, easily digestible and shareable components.”“...what?”Snow starts talking about above the fold content and Emma doesn’t understand why everyone is so obsessed with Yelp, why Snow knows so much about internet marketing, or why she can’t seem to get some coffee in the morning without it being a federal fucking issue.---The Soulmate/Florist-Tatooist AU that no one ever wanted set to the tune of a social media AU, if you consider Yelp! a social media platform.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mippippippi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mippippippi/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning - this fic is dredged from the bottom of the shenanigans barrel. It's trashy and I regret nothing.

“We’re current on schedule to arrive in Bangor by sunset, viewable to your left. Looks like it’s gonna be a smooth touchdown, folks. Once again, your pilot and crew thank you for flying the friendly skies with-”

Emma pops her earplugs back in as the airport gets closer and closer.

* * *

“I’m sorry, Ms. Swan, it seems like the plane carrying your check-in was delayed.” The person at the desk tells her, “but we expect it to arrive in about three hours, if you’d like to wait? Otherwise we can ship it to you at a later time. You should get it in a week, at the latest.”

Emma wants to point out that most people flying anywhere need their baggage when they land, not when they leave, but it’s not like it’d do her any good. She sighs, “No, no, three hours? That’s fine.”

At least she gets a meal voucher for the trouble.

It actually takes seven hours for her to finally retrieve her suitcase. When it becomes apparent that she will not be leaving Bangor International four hours after she landed, she calls.

“You’ve reached The Enchanted Forest - Storybrooke’s family florist shop and a Yelp favorite! We’re closed for the night but if you leave a name, number, and the kind of bouquet you’re looking for, we’ll get back to you bright and early!” A chipper voice recording tells her.

“Hey, mom-” the word reluctantly tumbles out, if only as a self-preservation instinct, “- I know I said I’d be there by now, but there’s been some trouble with my-”

And as if she had recited the correct magic incantation, the phone picks up with a _click_.

“Emma, sweetheart! Where are you? I’ve been worried sick! Oh, my heart couldn’t handle it if something had happened to you too! With everything that’s happened I’ve been watching your flight since it left and I was so relieved to see it land on time and that the weather was fine along your travel path and-”

“Yeah, uh, some trouble with my baggage. I’m just waiting for it, that’s all. I’ll be in late tonight. Don’t wait up.”

“Oh.” Her mother sounds disappointed, “You couldn’t have it shipped? Or come back for it?”

Emma laughs and it comes out a little flat to be convincing, “I’m not driving three hours back to Bangor. It’s fine; like I said, I’ll just be in late and don’t wait up.”

A pause, “Okay. Dinner’ll be in the fridge. It’s your favorite. Drive safe, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Emma says and hangs up. A security guard comes up to her, wheeling along her suitcase. “This yours?” he asks.

“That’s mine.” She confirms and reaches for it. Her jacket rides up in the motion, revealing the hints of her sleeve, which the guard doesn’t miss. “They yours too?” He asks, referring to them.

Emma smiles politely, hoping to just get her goddamn suitcase and leave, but the security guard seems intent on conversation, even if it’s just with himself and Emma as an unfortunate casualty. “Got a set for myself, too.” he continues, “Didn’t make my partner too happy when she first saw them, let me tell you. Called me an extra fucker. Shit, you don’t mind the language, right? You don’t seem like the kind of person to mind-”

“I’ve got an appointment to keep.” Emma interrupts, “So if you don’t mind-”

“Oh! Sure, sure,” the guard says, finally relinquishing his grip on her suitcase, “You have a nice one! And remember, whoever they are, they’re your extra fucker.”

Emma decides, right then, that she will pay extra money to take a train to New York and fly out from there. No money saved is worth the annoyances she’s already had to endure and she only just arrived. The clock ticks over to midnight.

Happy fucking birthday, she thinks.

* * *

The highway to Storybrooke at this time of night is blissfully quiet and under the flickering pattern of streetlights, she can see her tattoo sleeve under her jacket.

Yeah, of course she had to get, as the security guard so aptly self-described as, an extra fucker for a soulmate. An extra fucker who decided it’d be a good idea to get not one, but two full sleeves without any consideration for the innocent parties who’d also be forced to to get not one, but two full sleeves! Who even does that?

Emma’s grip tightens on the wheel. She’s sure her soulmate lives in like one of three cities where it’s actually socially acceptable and probably socially encouraged to have full sleeves and she’s been tempted to storm the tattoo parlors and beat the name out of a series of poor and beleaguered tattooists. Heck, she could start on it during this trip - there’s that tattooist right next to The Enchanted Forest. A popular one who could probably point her in the right direction, if Snow’s constant bemoaning is anything to go by.

It’s a nice thought to keep her company as she’s greeted by the “Now Entering Storybrooke - Home of Your Happily Ever After!” sign.

* * *

Snow isn’t fretting and she knows Emma told her not to wait up. It’s just, with David in the hospital and Emma coming late, she couldn’t sleep. So she’s up baking some pie. Maybe she’ll take it down to Granny’s in the morning. Granny has never begrudged her a spot in the display cabinet and it’ll be a nice surprise for the regulars. Snow’s pie always goes quickly whenever they have a neighborhood potluck.

There’s a rustling sound by the door, that’ll be Emma reaching for the hideaway key. A click, Emma unlocking the door. Boots scuffing on the mat, a pause before Emma audibly sniffs, “Snow? Are you still up?”

“In here!” She calls out, “Just baking some pie!”

“Told you not to wait up,” Emma says somewhat gruffly. It must be the stress of nearly losing her baggage, Snow thinks - a mood remediable by pie. Good thing she stayed up to make some.

“Sometimes you just need to make some pie.” She says sagely, turning back to check on it. Behind her, Emma takes off her jacket and pulls a chair out - almost certainly to put the jacket on it. “The coat rack is where it always is.” Snow reminds her, not bothering to turn back - the pie’s just about done. She opens the oven door and reaches for it, the smell of apple wafting through the house.

Emma’s voice filters in from the hallway, getting louder as she returns, “Anyway, I’m pretty tired so I’m just going to-”

Snow shrieks as Emma re-enters the kitchen, promptly dropping her pie. It splatters apple filling over both of them. Emma jumps back, “Shit! That’s hot! What the-”

Emma, her precious child Emma, is wearing a tank top that prominently displays both of her arms. Both of her heavily tattooed arms. Tattooed with tattoos Snow knows.

Snow faints to the sound of Emma cursing and rushing over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Do I have enough for 10k? Maybe not, but now that I've said that, it'll probably be like a 12k fic. 15k tops."


	2. Chapter 2

> “Tattoos are pretty permanent, and soulmate marks are doubly so! Add that to the cost of a soulmate mark and it’s definitely not the kind of decision to make at 3AM while drunk haha I’ve been thinking about getting a soulmate mark for a while now and did a lot of research on different tattoo parlors that are certified to tattoo marks and their artists and I have to say that Regina at Her Royal Majesty’s fit my requirements and style perfectly! Regina’s the owner and sole tatooist of Her Royal Majesty’s and is absolutely impeccable in her attention to detail and her design sense is equally top notch. The work’s a bit on the pricey end, even in the marks market, but 100% worth it! I’d definitely recommend Regina if you’re interested in a deeply meaningful mark for you and your soulmate!
> 
> EDIT: OMG! I was at a local cafe opening when someone saw my mark and said they recognized it and I thought they meant Regina because who wouldn’t but they said no, they recognized it because they saw someone else with the mark and when they saw it that time it was really stunning so they asked about it and long story short, I found my soulmate!

Regina can’t believe her phone woke her up for this. She’s sorely tempted to uninstall the Yelp! App, but she can’t deny that reviews like this bring business to her door.

Chipper business. Chipper business with deep, deep pockets. But so chipper. Regina has a flashback to the woman’s inability to stop talking and again, considers uninstalling the Yelp! App. The woman has posted an absolutely atrocious selfie of herself, showcasing the tattoo alongside her soulmate and it might possibly qualify for the worst photograph Regina has ever seen of her work. The comment on the photo reads, “Here we are! Look at how beautiful it is! Regina, if you’re reading this, feel free to use this picture on your portfolio!”

Insult to injury, honestly. Regina groans. All she did was tattoo “Live, Love, Laugh” on the woman. She regrets the transaction immensely. Maybe not the money, but all the other parts. She supposes they deserve each other and taps out a quick “Congrats!” before returning to the scintillating task of staring at her ceiling. There’s a rabbit there today.

Just another day in a slowly gentrifying Storybrooke, she supposes. It’s too early for these kinds of thoughts without some coffee to wash them down.

Regina can’t be fucked to deal with her thrift store second-second-second-hand coffee maker this morning so Granny’s it is. On the way out, she meets the neighbors opening up shop. A neighbor. Last she heard, the other neighbor was in the hospital in a coma, after some kind of goat incident?

“Regina!” Snow greets her brightly, too brightly and too damn early. This is why she opens late normally. That smile on Snow’s face is wider than usual, “How are you today? It’s a hot day, isn’t it? One of those kinds of days when you probably want to stay inside and enjoy the air conditioning? Gosh, I hear it’s going to be one of those weeks! Heatwave rolling through, get out of the way! Ha ha!” Snow punctuates it with the pull of an imaginary train horn.

It’s barely 85. Amateur. “Snow,” Regina returns and then hastens to leave. She can feel Snow’s eyes on her and this wasn’t the weird she signed up for when she opened shop in Storybrooke.

* * *

“How’s my favorite resident tattoo artist?” Ruby asks when she enters Granny’s. “Saw that latest review on Yelp,” Ruby says, waggling her eyebrows, “about that ‘deeply meaningful mark’ done with a ‘top notch design sense’? Please tell me, oh great artist, about the depth of the phrase, ‘live, laugh, love’.” She cackles at this.

“The universe demands balance for people with bank accounts that large.” Regina says. “I swear, Ruby, you keep more up to date with my Yelp than I do.”

“Honey, I keep up with _everyone’s_ Yelp reviews.” Ruby corrects, pouring Regina a cup of coffee and carelessly tossing a handful of sugar packets on the table.

“You couldn’t pick a more normal social media platform to stalk us all on?” Regina asks, pouring two packets of sugar into her coffee, gesturing for some creamer.

Ruby throws the packet at her head, “You know what they say about how other people see you.”

“And what do they say?” Regina takes a sip and it is as vile as she expected. No amount of sugar or creamer can hide the fact that Ruby probably saves her the shittiest dregs in an attempt to coerce her to yell at her coffee maker again so that she can post it on the internet for fake points or something. Honestly, you yell at an inanimate object once (“You also tried to throw it out your window but apparently your window was made of sterner stuff and then I had to drive you to the hospital to get you checked for a concussion”) and no one ever lets you forget it.

Ruby shrugs, “I dunno, I figured your deep and meaningful ass would know.”

“My deep and meaningful ass says ‘stop stalking everyone on Yelp. It’s weird.’”

Regina regrets the words right as they leave her mouth because Ruby isn’t going to let them go. It’s Storybrooke, rated one of the top hipster meccas in the world, weird is normal over here. Before Ruby can give her shit, the door bell jingles-

“Yo, Ruby!” An abrasive voice calls out. Regina immediately dislikes this tourist, no doubt drawn here by Granny’s own impressive number of 5-star Yelp reviews, all extolling how the “staff treat you like family!”

Ruby’s face breaks out in a grin though, “Now there’s a voice I haven’t heard in a good few years.” She pushes herself off of Regina’s table to look over at the door, “How’re you doing Em-Oh shit.”

“What, your coffee? Ten years and it still tastes like diesel?”

“Uh-”

“Is that who I think it is, coming here to judge my establishment’s fine food and drink?” Granny calls out from the kitchen. “We don’t see you for ten years and that’s the first thing you say to-”

Granny seems to have more decorum than to follow Ruby’s example, but even so, she stops mid-sentence.

“What’s everyone’s deal this morning?” apparently-not-a-tourist Emma says “Something in my teeth?”

Regina stands up to crane her neck over and see what all the fuss is about at the same time Emma notices her movement and looks over toward Regina.

And ah, oh _shit._

Regina knows that this is going on the Storybrooke’s Summerlands Street (Locals Only!) Facebook group (which she is only a part of because someone needs to keep an eye on Ruby) if she doesn’t contain the situation (Ruby) quickly. The group may only be 100 people, but it’s 100 people who feel the need to see her on a daily basis.

“I see we have a fan.” She drawls.

Emma recovers quickly, pointing an accusing finger at Regina, “You! What were you even thinking? Getting these?” She moves onto gesturing with both her arms at her arms.

Regina thinks she looks like she’s drowning and doing a spectacular job of it. Deep breaths, she thinks to herself, contain the situation by glaring at her until she puts away her smartphone.

Ruby does no such thing and Emma continues her tirade, “The first one was bad enough. You couldn’t have left it at the half-sleeves? You can at least cover half-sleeves! Do you know how hard it is to cover up a full sleeve? Two full sleeves? And what’s with this design?” Emma points to a section Regina’s always been fond of. A rougher work, but she’s kept it prominent for foolish sweet sentiment.

“It looks like someone fucked a fantasy metal band and shit out this Lord of the Rings wannabe - sorry, Granny.” Emma finishes sheepishly. The diner is stock still and quiet. Even Ruby has looked up to stare alongside everyone else.

And fuck the situation. Regina gets up to march over there and be not only equally confrontational, but superiorly confrontational. “I was thinking that the fine arts are the sort of thing that one should appreciate, should one have the class to do so.” She levels a judgemental sweeping onceover at Emma.

She’s so close to Emma that she can smell Snow’s fucking shampoo because there’s no mistaking that scent and bares a smile at her. “And it would seem that you’re sorely lacking in that department, but I suppose society’s barbarism had to go somewhere and you were the easiest lay.”

She would do that ridiculous snapping motion Ruby keeps trying to teach her “for the vine” but this isn’t a fucking high school musical and Regina isn’t fucking around.

Emma can only gape before snapping her jaw shut in fury and storming out. Regina smugly watches her leave. It’s not until the door bell stops ringing that Regina notices everyone still staring at her. She may have miscalculated the situation.

“What?” She snaps, “Mind your own business.” She sulks back to her table and behind her the diner reluctantly rouses itself back to normalcy. Ruby has already somehow made her way back to the table before Regina.”Dude,” she says, not looking up from her smartphone, “Low blow.”

Regina groans into her coffee. So much for containing the situation, who is currently typing furiously on her smartphone.


	3. Chapter 3

> “Oh man, I come to Granny’s every day because I really can’t imagine starting my work grind without a cup of their fresh cold brew. I don’t know what they put in there but it might not be legal, if you kno what I’m saying. It’s that good! ;) I’m writing this review because you think that in a small hole in the wall local diner like Granny’s, nothing interesting happens but this morning two chicks met each other and they were soulmates and definitely some chemistry right then and there! ;) one’s local and one’s from here so what are the chances, am I rite? SO hey, come here for some cold brew and who knows, maybe your soulmate to :))))”

“You’re making headlines.” Ruby tells Emma when she brings out her order.

The review has already been liked repeatedly and is listed as one of the most “helpful” reviews. Emma wants to punch Ruby and maybe cry. Mostly, she wants to punch Ruby. “I know you wrote this, Ruby. You know this is against the rules, right? Do you even sell cold brew? Or is it just iced coffee?”

“Family secret,” Ruby brushes off, “and how dare you accuse me of such behavior! I’m a law-abiding citizen, I will have you kn-”

“You didn’t even try! The account’s name is ‘Red’! You could at least have been a little more discrete and gone with ‘Wolfy McWolfface`, which would have been less obvious!”

Ruby shrugs, “You can insinuate all you want but I don’t see any evidence linking me to this honest person’s honest review about an incident they clearly witnessed and then proceeded to review on Yelp.”

“The typos were a nice touch.” Emma concedes.

“They were,” Ruby agrees, “adds some extra authenticity to it. Now, the post on the Facebook group, definitely me.”

“…What Facebook group?” Emma asks.

“Whoops. Sorry Emma, first rule of fight club.”

“What the-” Emma pulls up the Facebook app, “The fuck is this?” Why do the Summerlands even have a local group? It’s a fucking street and everyone knows everyone else. You know what, don’t answer that.” She jabs at the ‘Join Group’ button. The app briefly informs her that her request is pending before flickering back to ‘Join Group’.

“…Did you just deny me?”

“It’s for your own good. You wouldn’t believe how many likes the post’s gotten.”

“You know I can just get Snow to add me right?”

“You could but fair warning, the last time she tried to add someone was when she made the group and she accidentally banned half the people on the street and, like you said, everyone knows everyone so this pretty much almost started a street-wide war. Come to think of it, it was actually pretty funny. Go right ahead.” Ruby intently watches her phone for the notification that Emma’s requested to join again.

Emma pockets her phone just to spite her. Ruby winks and damnit, played.

Ruby laughs, “Sorry Emma, you’re just going to have to accept the fact that the Summerlands will be talking about the shitshow you two put on until a larger, more scandalous shitshow happens. Which, speaking of, I know you went home and googled her. As your best friend, I demand to know the details.”

“Reluctant acquaintance.” Emma corrects.

“BFF’s” Ruby counters, feigning hurt.

Emma sighs. For all of Ruby’s bluster, she’s always been a good keeper of secrets and it’s not like Emma could tell anyone else here. She might as well buy a megaphone at the overpriced general store and yell at the street corner. “Well, I found out that she’s a tattooist.”

Ruby snorts at that, “Yeah, can’t wait until you guys get to therapy and have to talk about how you called one of her first pieces garbage.”

“Ugh.” Emma makes a face, “Thanks for the positive outlook. I like how you think it’s going to get that far. She’s got a personality like scratching chalkboard. Time to move away and never come back. Goat-related coma-necessary incidents are a once in a lifetime event, right?”

Ruby shrugs, then holds out the other coffee she had on her tray. Emma is somewhat confused, until a familiar arm attached to an unfortunate person reaches to take it and a sip from it.

“Absolutely vile.” Regina tells Ruby.

“Only the best for you, darling.”

“Yes, I did notice that the Facebook post was kindly devoid of any aberrations in grammar or mentions of my personality like scratching chalkboard.” Emma winces. Regina is purposely avoiding both eye contact with Emma and acceptance of the reality that Emma is sitting literally right there.

“Oh! You saw the Yelp review? Emma here thinks it’s a fake, but you and I both know that it’s unprovable, right?” Ruby quickly divests Regina of her preferred reality.

“I can’t believe you felt the need to post that. How did you even get that up first? I know I saw Leroy trying to type but he was probably too drunk to hit the submit button properly.”

Ruby pats her on the back. It’s condescending at best, “Regina, sweet, innocent Regina, someone was going to post about that shitshow you two put on yesterday. At least take solace in the fact that it was I, your best friend, who got the likes for it.”

“Reluctant acquaintance.” Regina feels the need to correct.

“Look at that,” Ruby says, waggling her eyebrows at Emma - a disconcerting face on her that Emma would prefer never to see it again, “You two were practically made for each other. I’ll leave you two to get properly acquainted. Mostly because I can feel Granny glaring at me to ‘Get back to work! What do I pay you for?`, never mind that minimum wage here is barely living wage and everyone else is staring too. I expect details later!”

And she flounces off to tell off the other customers for nosing into other people’s business, never mind that Ruby is easily twice as nosy as they are. That hypocrite. Regina closes her eyes and does that deep breathing exercise where she has to count to ten. She gets to two. Partially because this exercise is bullshit, but also because Emma starts talking, which incidentally reminds her that this exercise is bullshit.

“So. I feel like we got off to a bad start.” Emma says, as if that statement could encompass yesterday’s events.

“To be generous.”

“And I may have said some things,” Emma continues, “that, in hindsight, may have been better left unsaid. It’s just, I wasn’t expecting you and I may have reacted er…strongly.” She laughs lamely, “It was a long night?”

Regina thinks that has to be one of the shoddiest non-apology she’s ever heard, arguably the shoddiest, considering who it’s coming from. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Ruby give her an encouraging thumbs up. It’s not enough. “Look, Emma, was it?” Emma looks insulted as she opens her mouth, probably to say something as asinine as what she’s already said. Regina holds up a finger to prevent any further suffering on her part, “I’m sure you went home and googled me but quite frankly, I couldn’t be bothered to do the same. I know enough about you to know that you’re only here until David gets out of the hospital after which point you’ll scurry back to whatever hole you dredged yourself out of at the behest of mommy dearest. I’m not interested in getting to know you because from what I’ve seen, you’re not worth my time or effort.”

With that, Regina leaves, making sure not to look back. Emma watches the door close. Not only does her soulmate have atrocious taste in marks, she’s also a fucking asshole. Emma can’t wait to get out of this shithole, even if it means she’ll leave knowing that Regina will forever be smug, thinking she was right. She never has to see that asshole again the moment she drives out of here.

To her side, Ruby gives her a weak thumbs up. Emma deigns to flip her right the fuck off.

Fuck this place, David needs to wake the fuck up so she can get the fuck out.


	4. Chapter 4

Storybrooke is too bright, Emma thinks, as she stares at her ceiling, golden with the sun. A quick glance at her phone tells her it’s barely 6. She’s not getting anymore sleep, so she reluctantly drags herself out of her bed and down to the kitchen for some necessary coffee. No need to risk another incident at Granny’s.

Maybe if she stares at the coffee maker, it will go faster. Except sunlight also streams through the window and it’s too early to be this bright, so she settles for squinting at it through the corner of her eye. She’s in the middle of side-eying the coffee maker when-

“We need to talk.” Snow says from the table.

“Jesus fuck!” Emma yelps, “When did you get here?”

“Language.” Snow chides without any real bite, “I’ve been here since the sun rose at 5:30. It’s not my fault you staggered right to the coffee maker. Anyway, have you seen this?” She waves her smartphone at Emma. Emma can’t read anything, but she recognizes that on-brand red.

“…Is that a Yelp review?” She asks, skeptical.

“Worse.” Snow says, “It’s a Yelp listicle.”

“…a what?”

“An article but in list form because readthrough numbers go up when content is broken into smaller, easily digestible and shareable components.”

“…what?”

Snow sighs, “Just read this.”

Emma squints at the phone. “It looks like…someone named Debra listed off places she’d recommend when visiting. What’s wrong with it? The shop’s on the list.”

Snow swipes at her phone, apparently unhappy with the response Emma’s given, “The problem is that The Enchanted Forest is ranked #4!”

Emma attempts to defuse the situation, “That’s still good right? I mean, Granny’s has universal appeal so it being ranked as #1 kind of makes sense, right? It’s not like everyone visiting Storybrooke needs flowers-”

Too late, Emma realizes that this was not the correct answer. “Not that!” Snow snaps, “Look who’s ranked #3!” and she waves the phone in Emma’s face. Emma tries to read the phone but it’s moving a bit too fast given that she still hasn’t had her morning coffee.

“Uh…Her Royal Majesty’s?” She finally makes out. It dawns on her that she needs to abort this conversation before Snow decides it’s time to talk about her and Regina but instead, what comes out is, “Good for Regina? I guess marks are more in-demand than bouquets.”

Snow starts screeching about above the fold content and Emma doesn’t understand why everyone is so obsessed with Yelp, why Snow knows so much about internet marketing, or why she can’t seem to get some coffee in the morning without it being a federal fucking issue.

* * *

“Brave.” Ruby says, “Coming in here after the last two days.”

“Shut up and give me some coffee.” Emma says, “I’ve already had my incident for the day. Snow found some stupid listicle that ranked Regina’s place higher than hers and won’t shut up about it.”

Ruby checks her phone at that point, “Oh hey, looks like Debra’s listicle got recommended by Yelp. That’ll be good for this tourism season. Her stuff always gets good conversion rates.

“…Have you been talking to Snow?”

Ruby scoffs, “Please, Snow talks to me. Before I helped turn The Enchanted Forest into one of the must-see places of the Summerlands, Snow and David were trying to keep the business going by opening an illegal goat petting zoo. It was going to be the cool underground thing to do or something I’m really not sure they thought through it that far. You can see how well that turned out.”

Emma gapes, “Is that what happened? No one will tell me about it!”

“It was all over the Facebook gro-Oh yeah, haha.”

Emma makes a frustrated noise, “Will you just-” She jabs at the Facebook app, “Let me join the damn-”

“There you are!” Snow calls out above the sound of the door jingling, “You were supposed to help me open up this morning and mind the shop! We can’t slack off on this! Don’t you remember the listicle? Ruby! Did you see Debra’s listicle? The nerve! After everything-”

Snow’s phone beeps and she stops herself mid-tirade to check it. It must be Emma’s request to join the Facebook group. Emma watches as Snow taps on her phone and the ‘Request Sent’ icon turn back into ‘Join Group’.

“Did you just reject me?” Emma asks, affronted on principle this time.

“Are you staying?” Snow asks, surprisingly serious about a Facebook invite.

“Until David gets out, yes-”

“I seem to recall you, what was it, want to ‘get out of here as soon as fudging possible?’”

“I mean, that wasn’t the explicative I chose and it’s not something you were supposed to hear…How did you even hear that anyway?”

“Facebook group.” Ruby stage whispers. Emma groans.

Snow huffs, “Well, regardless, I don’t see a point in adding you when I would just have to remove you in a week or so. We all remember the last time I tried that.”

Ruby rolls her eyes, “Snow, I don’t understand how you can manage multiple audience sources, social media numbers, and several ad campaigns, but you still can’t remove people from the Facebook group without inciting a street-wide war.”

Snow shrugs, “David normally handles implementation. I do strategy. Which speaking of, I’ve got a damage control plan for the fallout of Debra’s post. I wanted to run it by you before pushing it live.”

“Whoa, hey, unless you plan on taking Moe’s place on that list, I’m going to plead like the Swiss here and claim myself as a neutral party. You can’t ask me to throw Regina under the bus like that.”

“Ruby, please, Moe’s bookstore takes up half the block. The only way to get The Enchanted Forest in the most-read section is to bump Her Royal Majesty’s down. You can’t possibly tell me you think Regina deserves that #3 space more than I do!”

Emma can’t believe this conversation is happening around her. Ruby looks distressed. Sucker. Emma feels no sympathy because Ruby only has to deal with this on-shift; Emma has to deal with it via a constant stream of text messages, voicemails, and one-sided conversations. Emma’s just going to wait out Snow’s alarming enthusiasm for street social media warfare somewhere safe.

Ruby, bless her poor soul, passes Emma a to-go cup as she sidles past.

* * *

The storefront. Because someone has to watch it and Snow sent repeated regular texts informing Emma of such until Emma sent back a selfie of herself sitting on the stoop. Snow had texted then to “Make sure you smile for the customers! No one wants to buy flowers from a sad face!” and fortunately no more after that. She must be busy planning petty war. And it’s only 11. Emma groans to no one in particular.

“Hasn’t Snow told you that no one’s going to buy flowers from a sad face?” Regina asks her because of course Regina gets to open up shop at 11 instead of the ungodly hour of 7.

“Ugh. She told you that too? Easy for you to say - I’ve been up since 6 and never want to hear the name ‘Debra’ again.” This is as civil as they’ve ever been to each other and Emma’s going to try not to be the one who starts another debacle, if only because Leroy has been conspicuously and kind of creepily watching her from the corner since she arrived. If Regina wants to talk this soulmates business, she can attempt to do so in the privacy of one of their homes. While Emma climbs out a window.

“I told her once that it was unnatural for people to smile that much for that long. I’m not sure she’s forgiven or forgotten that.” Regina admits conspiratorially.

Emma can’t stop the bark that comes out at that, “Is that why she’s so fixated on that dumb listicle?”

“Debra’s? I’m sure it’s not helping. No, you can probably blame Ruby for this. You think Snow could have figured out Yelp without her help? We all remember the Facebook incident.”

Emma flops backward on the stoop and closes her eyes. The concrete is an uncomfortable temperature and probably filthy, but small-street politics have a way of driving her to complete apathy. “You read the thing too? How does everyone know about Debra? Why does everyone know Debra on a first-name basis? Do you all just have Yelp alerts? Why is this street so obsessed with Yelp?” Emma has so many questions.

“Debra is a regular. She lives in the tri-county area and frequents Snow’s quite often. I’m actually surprised that she ranked my shop higher. I suppose a mark is a more permanent purchase than a bouquet.” Regina muses out loud.

“But why Yelp?” Emma whines. “It’s not even a real social media platform! It’s just a site you go to when you need to find a place to eat and can’t decide!”

“The site” Regina corrects. “The Summerlands isn’t a tech hub; it’s a lot of small mom-and-pop stores constantly on the verge of being outpriced by gentrification and the consumer shift to big box store and online purchasing. A lot of the street’s business comes from word of mouth, like Yelp, and its biggest value proposition is the experience, not the actual commodity.”

Emma can begrudgingly see the appeal. They’ve all been talking to Ruby, it seems. “Guess it must be good for you that you made it to the frontpage section then, huh?”

“Not as much as Snow makes it sound. I get a lot of my business through word of mouth. It’s a bit of an underground niche, the kind of marks I ink. Adds to the appeal, I suppose, which Snow tried to replicate.”

“Wait, wh-the underground goat petting zoo.” Emma says softly, but with feeling.

“The underground goat petting zoo.” Regina agrees, “For all of Snow’s talent in planning marketing campaigns, she’s always been atrocious at getting the details right. Like the target audience.”

Emma can hear Regina dust off her hands, the universal motion for signaling a task, apparently. “You also might want to get up now.” Regina says.

“What?” Emma opens her eyes to see Regina standing above her, holding out a hand. She looks at Regina and the hand suspiciously.

Regina rolls her eyes, “Do you trust me?”

Emma doesn’t answer but takes her hand anyway. Their tattoos match because of course they do. It’s an alarming thought that interrupts her long enough not to notice Regina’s supposedly friendly smile turn wicked.

“Sharon!” Regina calls out to someone behind Emma, “Good to see you again! Have you met Emma? She’s Snow’s daughter, here to help out while David’s recovering.” Behind them, Sharon calls out back, “Oh! Regina! So nice to see you again, how have you been? And Emma too! Hello!”

“Why would you do this to me?” Emma hisses at Regina, who continues to smile that wicked grin even as she responds.

“Remember Emma, no one wants to buy flowers from a sad face.” She finally lets go of Emma’s hand, which Emma hadn’t realized that she hadn’t let go otherwise she would have held onto that hand like a goddamn vice and made Regina stay.

“I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m off to an early lunch before my noon appointment.” Regina says to Sharon, waving them both off. Emma takes the opportunity facing away from Sharon to scowl at Regina, who laughs it off.

“Oh! Of course!” Sharon says, “Busy helping us folk find our soulmates, huh? Important work!” before turning her attention back to Emma. Emma remembers to snap that smile back on. It’s incredibly false and probably too big but Sharon doesn’t seem to notice while she’s talking at Emma. Emma can kind of make out the bottom half of “LAUGH” under Sharon’s sleeve and doesn’t even need to see the rest to know what it says in its entirety. And besides, she’s sure Sharon will insist on showing her anyway.

Damn Regina.

* * *

Regina can hear the muffled sounds of Snow wheedling Ruby even before she enters Granny’s, no doubt trying to coerce Ruby into helping her convince Debra to modify her verdict.

Ruby looks almost grateful when Regina walks in, “Regina! What can I get for you?” She rounds the table to come closer. Behind her, Snow makes a terrible show of casually but slowly gathering her surprisingly detailed charts and notes.

“Just a coffee please. Sorry I’m a little late for my usual cup of swill, I was just talking to Sharon.” Regina mentions casually, with much greater success than Snow, she thinks. Snow perks up at this, as Regina expected.

“Sharon? Oh! How is she? She’s a little early, what did she say she was doing here?” Snow fires off questions while Regina patiently waits for her to come to the inevitable conclusion, “Do you think she needs another bouquet? Maybe she’s here to buy flowers for Helen’s wedding! That must mean she’s talking to-” Snow looks somewhat horrified. And there it is.

“I have to go!” She exclaims, giving up all pretenses of casual and slow, cramming all of her papers into her arms and rushing out. Regina kindly holds the door for her.

Ruby hefts a heavy arm over Regina’s shoulder, presenting her with her coffee with the other - all the better to be nosy with. “So tell me; I know you talked to Emma. Leroy posted about it.”

Regina grimaces. It’s either the coffee or Leroy’s inability to stop being creepy. “Not much to say. It was a shockingly civil conversation. Wanted to know the whole sordid story about the Summerlands’ love affair with Yelp. I blamed you.” Ruby doesn’t deny it because well, it’s all very true.

“You could try, you know.” Ruby points out.

“For what? She’s made it obvious she’s not interested in staying and I’m not particularly interested in leaving.” Regina counters.

“Yeah, but this is your universe-approved soulmate!”  
“I don’t-”

“A second chance!”

“Ruby, that’s not real-”

“I mean, what are the chances, am I right? After all this time? To find your soulm-”

“I already had a soulmate!” Regina snaps back, finally done with this conversation.

Ruby doesn’t respond right away, it’s a rare look on her, this serious contemplation. “He would have wanted you to be happy.” She finally says.

“I was.” she says, softly.

Ruby is finally quiet.


	5. Chapter 5

“I have a plan.” Snow grandly announces to Emma over dinner. Emma is no longer sure pie was worth forgoing Granny’s for.

“For?” Emma asks with a mouth full of pie. Snow glares at her, but this was the only way she was going to be able to commit to what is certainly a future full of regret.

“How to get The Enchanted Forest to rank #3!” Snow says, as if that should be obvious.

Emma isn’t sure why she thought differently. “Don’t you think this is maybe a bit…much?” She hedges as Snow lays out a series of slightly crumpled graphs and diagrams on the dining table, “It was just an article, right?”

Snow stops what she’s doing to look at Emma with the most serious expression she can muster. It comes out as a grimace, “Emma. I know Regina is-” she pauses briefly to center herself, “-your soulmate-”

Emma chokes on the pie.

“And we are going to have to talk about that sooner or later, but we need to keep this business in the green and soulmates isn’t reason to side with her over your family!” Snow finishes, looking determined to convince Emma back to her side or cause another street-wide war trying.

Emma would like to point out that Snow and David are soulmates and that Snow spent a good chunk of Emma’s childhood reminding her that they overcame great amounts of dramatics to be together and that’s why they’ve always gone to Granny’s for Thanksgiving. Instead, “Oh my god I wasn’t picking a side, just pointing out that it probably isn’t that big of a thing for business one way or another.”

Snow brightens, “Great! So you’re helping me with the business then? Like you said you would?”

“That’s not what I-”

“Okay, so I’ve invited you to the War Room-”

“The what?”

“And our first meeting is tomorrow morning before shop opens!”

“Snow, no, that’s like 5, no one gets up that early-”

“So get some rest!” and she breezes out.

Emma refuses. No sane person should have to wake up at 5 in the morning to plan out a Yelp war.

* * *

Emma does not end up having to wake up at 5 in the morning to help her mother plan out a Yelp war. Jokes on her though, because instead Emma has to wake up at 3 in the morning to drive both of them to the hospital because David has woken up.

A Dr. Whale had called Snow, informing her that her husband had woken up but seemed delirious, ranting about the goats. Which, Snow couldn’t very well explain why he was yelling about goats, but assured Dr. Whale that they would be there shortly.

Snow also does not explain to Emma why David cares so much about the goats, which Emma feels somewhat slighted by. This clusterfuck has been an exhausting uphill battle against Snow’s blithe passive aggressiveness. It almost makes her wish for Regina’s brick-to-the-brain aggression, but only almost.

“Snow!” David exclaims when they arrive, “The goats!”

“Yes, the goats,” Snow says agreeably, “what do you remember about the goats?”

David frowns, brow furrowed in concentration, which given how long he’s been out and the extent of his injury. Finally, “That we shouldn’t-”

“Right,” Snow interrupts before turning to Emma, “Could you give you me and your father a moment?”

David, apparently noticing Emma for the first time, brightens up. “Emma!” He cries, “You came back! Are you staying?” He seems so hopeful and he’s just out of a coma, Emma can’t bring herself to admit that she’s leaving as soon as he’s discharged.

“Ah, we’ll talk more when you’re better and out of here, yeah? I’ll just give you two some space.” Emma says instead. David takes it as a good sign and waves at her as she leaves.

Emma is considering her third Snickers bars when Snow comes out, frowning. “We have a problem,” she says, “one that I need you to be discrete about.”

“Let me guess - it’s about the underground goat petting zoo.”

Snow hides her surprise better than Emma thought she would. “It’s the Summerlands. Someone was going to tell me eventually, even if you weren’t planning to.”

It’s a barely held back accusation, one that Snow ignores in favor of her own, “Yes, well, at the time it was a local matter.”

“And now?”

“A family one. Your father sourced and cared for the animals. It was his responsibility to manage the situation and I wasn’t aware that he hadn’t brought on any help. When he was injured, in all the chaos, it hadn’t occurred to me that no one was watching them, let alone taking care of them. They’ll need to be found, gathered up if they’re still alive, carcasses taken care of otherwise.” Snow says it like a command, like Emma will simply fall in line.

“Not sure if you’ve noticed, Snow, but I’m not exactly a rancher here.” Emma says instead.

“Your father told me that they were docile creatures and there’s only you. I need to be with your father during his transition from the hospital back home. I expect you to have no trouble. Can I count on you?” Snow asks, expectant in her challenge.

Emma sighs, “Yeah. Fine. How many?”

Snow grimaces.

* * *

Regina wakes up to an insistent knocking on her business door, so loud that she can hear it up in her bedroom. Maybe if she ignores it, it will go away. The knocking only gets more insistent but Regina can be stubborn too.

“Regina! Regina wake up! I know you can hear me! Get your damn ass down here before Leroy wakes up! Don’t think I won’t let him post about this on the Facebook group!”

Regina wakes up. Sometimes, one must bend with the wind, lest they snap in it instead.

“This better be good, Emma.” Regina snaps after she cracks open the door. One look at Emma’s face and she attempts to slam the door shut again, but Emma’s gone and shoved her booted foot through the gap. Damn, Regina can’t even smash Emma’s foot for good measure.

“I need-” Emma makes a face, “-your help.”

“No.” Regina slams the door against Emma’s foot. To her credit, Emma doesn’t even flinch.

“Just hear me out.” Emma says, borderline pleading. It is somewhat satisfying, but not enough to justify the hour.

“It is 5 in the morning; you’ve got 5 minutes to make your case before we see what an ‘authentic rustic door’ can do to your Boot Barn shoe.” Regina counters and Emma starts rambling about a shady goat farm out near the woods and the rogue drove of goats that now wander the property that Emma has, for some unfathomable reason, promised to find and deal with.

“No.” Regina says again, moving to close the door with an excessive amount of force.

“Help me and I’m out of here. You’ll never have to see me again.” Emma bargains this time.

“You’re leaving either way.” Regina reminds her, “Unless you’ve suddenly developed a desire to settle down within walking distance of your mother, which judging by your life choices, seems highly unlikely.”

Emma finally takes her foot out of the doorway, “Fine. Whatever.” and then sulks off, because Emma apparently has the maturity of a teenager.

It seems like it’s only been five minute since Regina attempted to salvage her night’s sleep when the door sounds again. Damn Emma and her stubbornness, she thinks. Well, Regina refuses to indulge it this time and shoves a pillow on her face instead. She can pretend it’s Snow making a mess of her latest attempt at woodworking or something. The knocking stops suspiciously soon and Regina breathes a sigh of relief-

“Bitch, open the door next time.”

…Too soon. “Ruby.” Regina says, deadpan, “What have we said about breaking and entering?”

“You gave me a key ‘for emergencies’ and I thought I heard an emergency and look, there you are, being suffocated by a pillow. The assailant must have run off when he heard me coming. You’re welcome. I’m calling in the favor now.”

Regina sighs, “Is this about Emma? I’m not helping her with Snow’s ridiculous goat problem. She’s made her bed, let her croak in it.”

“Jeez, Regina, let’s not jump straight to murder. All I’m asking for is a day of you, Emma, alone, in the woods, where no one can hear the screams.”

Ruby gets like this sometimes, fixated on a very particular idea. It reminds Regina of a dog and its chew toy. Amusing to watch, terrifying when you’re the chew toy. “I don’t see why I need to care.” Regina says, attributing the whine in her voice to the early hour of the day.

“Damn Regina, I gotta spell it out for you? You help her, she finishes helping Snow, she gets out of here, everyone gets what they want, everyone’s happy. Unless, of course, you don’t want her to leave?”

Regina can hear the challenge in her voice. It’s so obvious that Ruby’s trying to bait her, she should be offended. She’s not Emma, who would probably fall right for it, refusing to let any sort of challenge to her misinformed ego go unattended to. Ruby is just going to have to help Emma herself if she wants Emma to not die in an unfortunate goat-related accident.

* * *

Emma is trying to figure out how she’s going to find a bunch of goats in the woods without getting lost when someone knocks on her door. Because she’s not a bitter asshole like Regina, she goes to open it.

“Regina?”

Regina’s at her door, who looks like she’s going to do an interview for Hiker’s Weekly or whatever, who is giving Emma a very unsubtle onceover. Emma, who’s not wearing pants because who expects company at 6?

Regina pinches the bridge of her nose, closes her eyes, Emma can almost feel her counting to ten in her head, “Please put on some pants and retrieve your car.”

Emma thinks she looks as confused as she feels. “Uh…Are you…helping?”

Regina has not moved from that position. Right as Emma finishes her own ten count - “Against my better judgement, yes. Please get moving before I change my mind.”

And Emma would balk at Regina’s arrogant assumptions that Emma _needs_ Regina, but in the prospect of goat murder, Emma gets moving.

* * *

“It’s a good car.” Emma feels the need to say. Regina’s judgement radiates off of her.

“I’m sure.” Regina manages. Emma gives her points for sounding less condescending than she could. “Please stop by Granny’s before we leave.”

“Oh yeah, we could use some breakfast, huh? Gonna be a long day, hah.” Emma says weakly.

“Something like that.” Regina says.

When Emma pulls up in front of Granny’s, Regina stops her from turning off the engine. “When I give the signal, drive.”

“Wait, wha-”

Regina reaches over Emma, who gets a faceful of Regina and nearly an eyeful of elbow because Regina is less graceful than expected, in order to get to the honk. It ungracefully warbles a discordant tone for a few seconds before Ruby comes out to see what the ruckus is about.

“What the fu-”

And Regina flips her off. Emma takes that as the signal and drives. She’s fairly certain that Regina had envisioned herself flipping Ruby off as they drove into the rising sun, but if Emma tries to get the bug to switch from first gear to second gear too fast, the transmission’ll stall and Emma figures that pushing the bug to the nearest mechanic is even farther away from what Regina envisioned. So instead, they amble away at a walking speed until the gear catches, at which point they speed up to a respectable running pace. It’s enough time for Emma to hear Ruby howling with laughter and see her flip them off in the back view mirror.

When they’re far away enough, Regina says, “Well, that was less dramatic than I thought it would be.”

“Ruby put you up to this, huh?” Emma wagers, “Did that make you feel better?”

“No, but I thought it was worth a try anyway. Now that I’ve ruined our chances for breakfast at Granny’s, we’ll need to make another stop. Take the first exit off the freeway.”

And Emma figures that she can give Regina breakfast if Regina’s giving Emma her day. She wouldn’t have pegged Regina for a Hardy’s Burgers kind of person though, and files the note away. It feels like the sort of thing that could be important, somehow.


	6. Chapter 6

“Address?” Regina asks her as they’re leaving Hardy’s.

“What?” Emma asks back.

“Alternatively, I suppose we could just drive up and down the interstate while you make strange goat-like sounds in the hopes of drawing out your family’s wayward wards. If you’d like to waste time while making an ass out of yourself, I mean. Entirely up to you.”

Regina does “passive-aggressive” terribly, Emma thinks, rolling her eyes before fishing through her pockets for the address that Snow had scribbled down for her on some hapless doctor’s pad.

Regina makes a show of smoothing it out and reads it while walking. Or at least, she was. When Emma looks back, Regina’s stopped to stare at the paper. “They’re in Maine, right? Please tell me they’re in Maine.” Emma says.

Regina thinks for a moment. In lieu of saying anything, she hands the paper back to Emma, walks back to the car, and buckles herself in. Emma can see her attempting to breathe mindfully before she turns her attention to the slip.

* * *

“That’s clearly a mangled pig.” Regina drawls.

“What? No, that was the last tree we saw. This one is clearly the buffalo. How do you get mangled pig from buffalo? How do you even get to mangled pig?”

“How does Snow get ‘shaped like a buffalo’ from a tree?” Regina counters and, fair.

They’re parked on the shoulder of the interstate, emergency lights blinking, in between two middle of nowheres, attempting to decipher Snow’s cryptic directions. Emma had called Snow, right after she too had attempted to and failed to breath mindfully.

“Your father didn’t want anyone else to know. I thought they were sensible and assumed you could figure it out” Snow had said, slightly judgemental and clipped in a way to brook no argument. Emma had just hung up after that.

“We could just leave your mother to this mess.” Regina suggests. This is their third outcropping. They’ve debated on what Snow could have possibly meant by “take exit right after trees and rock in the shape of a buffalo” for far longer than two sane adults should have. They had to Google “buffalo” because Regina knew like three variations of buffalo-like species and got tetchy about which one they were looking for (they agreed that Snow had probably meant a bison). At this point, they’re just trying to see who can make the worst guess and Regina is winning by a long margin. It’s because she doesn’t have to care that there are an impractical number of goats possibly dead or escaped in the middle of the middle of nowhere.

“You get to leave. I leave and it never leaves me. It’ll haunt me in persistent phone calls that get more and more frequent until I have no choice but to fake my death and join Cirque du Soleil.” Emma says.

Regina frowns, “That’s what you do when the third date goes badly.” she corrects and either Regina has an encyclopedic knowledge of vintage children’s books or-

“You’re a nerd!” Emma says in a sing-song.

“Wha-I am n-You mentioned it first!” Regina splutters. A weak defense, at best, but they’re complicit in their knowledge.

“Doesn’t negate your nerdiness!” Emma crows.

“Just call your mother and ask her what she means by the buffalo.” Regina says, throwing Emma’s phone back at her. Regina had confiscated it in the beginning when Emma had tried to drive and coerce GPS to help them at the same time. As it turns out, even GPS can’t help when the instructions demand drunken interpretation of roadside debris and possibly blood sacrifice. Also Emma had nearly crashed them into a Hummer, hence the confiscation.

(“Who the fuck drives a Hummer these days?” Emma had griped.

“Someone who wants to win in the eternal struggle against driver stupidity.” Regina had snapped back, probably still a little peeved about nearly dying for a bunch of maybe-dead goats.)

“Really Emma, it can’t be this hard to find a buffalo. They’ve got the long arching horns - you remember, from when we visited Asia and were at that zoo? I remember the tour guide tried to convince me to pay money to let you pet one, as if-”

Emma hangs up. Walks back to the car where Regina is waiting.

“So? What did sh-”

“Get in the car. It’s this exit.”

“I am still pretty sure that’s not a bis-”

“Water buffalo. Car. Now.”

Regina gets in the car. She only lasts about a mile before feeling the need to quip, “You know it’s not safe to drive while angry.”

“I’m not angry.” Emma says to be contrite, but yeah, she’s kind of angry.

There’s a blissful quiet. “It’s kind of funny.” Regina says, the snicker right behind her teeth.

“It’s really not.”

“It didn’t really look like a water buffalo either. Laugh it off, Emma. I live next door to her. Sometimes all you can do is laugh otherwise it’ll drive you to murder and it’s really hard to hide bodies in a nosy neighborhood like the Summerlands. Also I’ve already had a near-death experience today and I don’t want to have to bury your body somewhere. We didn’t bring the right tools and the ground’s hard.”

Emma doesn’t know if she should be worried that Regina has oddly specific details about the inconvenience of homicide cover up but she’s right, sometimes all you can do is laugh.

* * *

By some miracle, they find the farm right around noon, the sun baking them in the Bug.

“Do you think we should take this back as proof?” Regina asks casually, eyeing the pile of dead goat. It’s the first sight that greets them when they get to the barn, a dead goat and a pile of roofing.

“Oh my god, we are not taking a severed goat head to my mother.” Emma says.

“It would be a nuisance. We’d have to smell it in the car on the way back.” Regina agrees, which is not the point Emma was implying whatsoever.

“How did it even get up there?” Emma asks, squinting at the roof, “That shouldn’t even be possible.”

“More importantly, is that the only goat? Just how many goats are there?”

“Ah, five? That’s not a lot, right?” Emma asks. “It seemed like a reasonable number when Snow said it.”

Regina is quiet for a moment, “Did you promise to find five goats for Snow?” She asks quietly, in the sort of tone that blares danger through its silence.

“Please don’t kill me.” Emma says, also quietly, in the sort of tone that denotes that they’re both aware that mistakes were made.

Regina closes her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose, sighs deeply, and it goes something like this:

  1. “Yeah no, Regina, we’re not strapping a dead goat to the Bug.”

  2. “ _Jesus,_ that’s a fat goat.”

  3. “Hah! And you said the sounds wouldn’t work! Oh god, get it off me, Regina. Regina!”

  4. They don’t talk about this one.




“That’s five.” Regina announces. The sun is setting and they’re both covered in a quaint assortment of grime. Regina’s pants will never be clean again and she will have to burn these boots. Emma’s hair is matted and slightly chewed.

Emma frowns, “Are you sure? I’m pretty sure I counted-”

“Five.” Regina says, firm, despite the fact that they are standing in a barn next to three goats and a goat carcass. Everything stares at them.

The sun sets behind the barn and when she squints up to the barn roof, she swears she sees a goat staring at her. “Five.” Emma agrees, to Regina. To herself, “before you go insane, Emma.” she mutters.

“It’s a bit late to worry about that if you’re conversing with yourself, no?” Regina comments, who apparently has the ears of a bloodhound.

“I’d like to see you be the child of Snow White without going a little insane.” Emma says, “and what do we tell her, anyway?”

Regina shrugs, “It’s not like she asked for proof of life or death. Just hide the evidence.”

They both look at the body. “No.” Regina says, before Emma can even ask, and walks away.

Damn. “This is why we couldn’t take the head home!” Emma yells to Regina’s back.

* * *

“Snow is waging war against you.” Emma tells Regina after Snow had been debriefed. They’re both outside on their stoops, although Emma isn’t sure what Regina is doing out here. It’s not like she has an overbearing mother hellbent on being at the top of the social status ladder.

Does she? Whatever, she doesn’t live with her mother at least. Emma considers finding a place to rent before she remembers that she’s supposed to be leaving as soon as she can.

“About Debra’s listicle? I’m surprised it took her this long, to be honest. Maybe she’s losing her edge.” Regina seems surprised that Emma is being civil. Emma is surprised that she’s being civil. Maybe living with a fretful Snow has finally driven her insane and into the arms of the enemy. Or something. Something less reminiscent of the soulmates elephant. Which doesn’t explain Regina, but any port in a storm, Emma thinks.

“Are you just going to let her?” Emma can’t imagine that Regina would just let Snow usurp her like this.

Regina shrugs, “Let her what?”

“…I don’t know, win the social media war. Or something. Does Yelp even count as social media?”

“Snow White may be very good at convincing the masses to believe that she’s good, kind, and pure, but I’ve always been able to beat Snow White at her own game.” Regina smirks and waves a tattooed arm at Emma, “After all, here we are.”

She’s got a beer in it and Emma hadn’t expected Regina to be a beer drinker, but Regina does live in Storybrooke, so maybe it’s entirely expected. If Emma had a beer in her hand, which she really should if this is where the conversation is going, she would have done a hilarious spittake because it is an unspoken rule that no one mention the elephant and it would seem that Regina did not get the fucking memo.

“Uh. Yeah. That. Uh. Did Snow say anything to you? Because she seems to be taking it well, sort of. I think mostly she’s just busy planning out her Yelp war and doesn’t have the headspace to think about it yet. But she wants to talk and like I don’t even know what she wants to talk about because it is what it is right? And she’s the one who always told me to follow your heart or something and I don’t know, that’s not really what’s happening here but it’d be kind of hypocritical for her to say otherwise in this case, wouldn’t it?”

Emma didn’t know what to say and apparently her brain thought the best solution was to say everything. Emma feels otherwise, but it’s done now. Regina doesn’t say anything, just sits there and taps on her beer for a moment before passing one from the six pack next to her to Emma, who takes it gratefully.

“Not that I’m complaining, but this seems like a suspiciously nice thing for you to do,” Emma says, twisting the top off. She sniffs it experimentally, “This isn’t poisoned or anything, is it?”

Regina rolls her eyes, “No, Emma, if I was going to poison you, I’d do it through your mother’s pie. There’s no sense in wasting a good beer, especially not the kind of beer I drink for Fridays, for such a mundane thing as a poisoning.”

“That’s not - it’s Tuesday - and I mean, okay, fine, whatever.” Emma says and takes a swig, promptly choking because _jesus fuck_ it’s like drinking paint thinner masquerading as an IPA. Regina makes very little effort to hide her snort of laughter. “Jesus! Who the fuck made this?” Emma finally looks at the bottle label, or at least tries to. There’s actually no bottle label. Oh god, Regina lied and she’s going to die now, isn’t she.

“Goodbye, Emma.” Regina says enigmatically, getting up to leave, leaving behind what’s left of the six pack. Emma pilfers it because, well, it’s actually pretty good once she gets past the initial surprise. If Regina wanted to keep it she should have taken it with her and at least they can agree that there’s no sense in wasting good beer.

It’ll only occur to Emma afterwards that Regina had never said answered her question, which she can’t help but feel a little disappointed by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by:
> 
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat_tower>


	7. Chapter 7

In another life, Regina thinks they could have been something more. Friends, enemies, lovers, something more than their tepid neutrality. But in this lifetime, Regina’s made her choice and it’s not one she’s willing to go back on.

It would have been trivial to her to wait out Emma’s dramatic reveal, because Emma wasn’t the kind of person to settle down in a place like the Summerlands. No, Emma’s a drifter, through and through. It’s present in everything about her, from the way she cases out any room she steps into to the alarming amount of takeout wrappers in her car.

Not that Regina’s paying attention, Emma’s just obvious, a terrible trait for a bounty hunter. Being google-able? Probably also a terrible trait, but Regina’s not going to mention that.

The point being, Emma inevitably would have left and Regina could have returned to her life no worse for the wear, were it not for Ruby’s interference.

“You owe me.” Ruby tells her, and it’s not a hypothetical smothering she’s referring to. And she does, so Regina drags herself out of bed at this ungodly hour, to hunt down some escaped goats with the daughter of her enemy, who also happens to be, as Ruby puts it, her ‘universe-approved soulmate’.

It’s not Friday enough for this kind of bullshit, Regina thinks. Ruby helpfully throws a pair of pants at her head.

The trip isn’t the worst thing Regina could have envisioned, there’s a sort of camaraderie that comes from their shared exasperation of Snow’s antics and Emma is easy company, a shallow thing exchanged without price. It’s…nice, but that’s all it could ever be, neither of them willing to piece out another part of themselves without assurance.

So when Regina wakes the next morning, she expects Emma to have already left. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person to enjoy long goodbyes, or goodbyes at all, really. Emma’ll have left the same way she arrived - discreetly in the middle of the night, never looking in the rearview mirror, and Regina idly wonders if the Summerlands will have even noticed.

At least, this is her train of thought before she catches a glimpse of her hip in the mirror and-

* * *

“Swan!” Regina near-roars, “What did you do?” She barges into the station, ignores an alarmed deputy Graham, and storms right to the drunk tank.

“Wha-Regina, stop yelling, my hangover can’t handle that many decibels.” Emma groans. “And god, woman, show me some mercy and shut the blinds.”

“Get up, Swan!” Regina snarls, “And explain what the fuck happened last night.”

“Ugh, I don’t know. Booze would be a good guess. Jesus, woman, what’s with you today?”

“Hip. _Now._ ”

Emma fumbles around her shirt without processing the command. There isn’t any bruising or injury that she can see, despite her bleary hangover vision. “You drunk or something too? Looks fine to me.”

“Other. Side.” Regina grits out.

Ah. And oh _shit_. She’s gone and gotten a tattoo, a mark actually, if Regina’s reaction is anything to go by. It’s…shit, she must have gotten really smashed and done this one herself. She doesn’t even know how she got to the tools and inks needed to get this done. She’s a little impressed it looks as much like an apple as it does though; she was really fucking out of it, if the holes in her recollection are anything to go by.

“Uh, I mean, it’s not like you have any room to judge!” Emma tries to defend, “You marked both our arms! The least you can do is give me a hip!”

It’s clearly not the right thing to say because Regina looks like she’s about to beat the keys to the tank out of Graham and then the shit out of Emma-

“I got your text!” Ruby says, gleefully barging in, “Man, you got shitfaced, didn’t you? I can’t believe you need me to pay your bail. I’m sure Leroy will-Oh _shit_. You fucked up, huh?”

Emma just groans, Regina is still advancing with the intent to murder, and Graham really needs to pick the fight response over the freeze response. Fortunately, Ruby is infinitely more capable and rushes over to redirect the very angry force that is Regina away from Emma and right out of the station. “Get your ass out of jail, Emma! We’ll talk about this later.” Ruby calls as she shoves Regina out.

Graham finally jumps into action, pulling out his baton. Emma just sighs, “Please just let me out.”

* * *

It comes out in bits and pieces, between Ruby’s witness statement of the beginning of the night (drinks before Emma leaves, Emma leaving to find another drinking partner when Ruby taps out) and Leroy’s incriminating Vines (Emma and Leroy drinking, Emma and Leroy breaking into Regina’s shop, Emma stabbing herself while Leroy eggs her on).

“Regina, you can’t just press charges against her.” Ruby tries, tugging ineffectively on Regina’s pen.

“You cannot tell me she didn’t do this on purpose.” Regina says to Ruby, “Of all the places to pick! This one!”

Ruby would like to point out that Regina had picked that spot too, but unlike Emma, she understands how to not bait a lion. “It certainly broke some record for stupidity, but let’s be rational here. You want her gone, pressing charges is not going to help with that-”

And Regina does want Emma gone, but more than that, she wants Emma to hurt just as much as she does because Regina isn’t sure she can ever forgive this.

“I can, and I just did.” Regina says. “Emma might make a career out of running, but jail kind of ruins that, doesn’t it?” It comes out a little cruel. Ruby winces.

* * *

“She did what?” Emma has finally sobered up, but is still in the tank because the Summerlands police station is a sham.

“Uh. Pressed charges.” Ruby says.

Emma is about to say some very damning things when Ruby holds up a finger, “Before you implicate yourself and make me an accomplice, I’m going to remind you that you did technically break into her shop and steal her stuff. Also you got a mark tatted, which is what she’s actually mad about.”

“Yeah, but, I mean, we could have, we didn’t have to narc.” Emma says petulantly. “It was just a mark. She gave me plenty of ones I didn’t ask for.”

Ruby groans, “You two need to get your shit together.”

There’s something Ruby wants to say, Emma can see it, can kind of guess at what it is, but Ruby’s good people and says nothing, just pays Emma’s bail and tells her to go fix this shitstorm.

* * *

In the end, Snow always finds a way to get involved. She blusters into the station and, to no one’s real surprise, wheedles Graham into a deal. Community service for Emma, she proposes, because she knows Graham’s been looking to make detective and hasn’t the Summerlands been suspected of being the hotspot for some smuggling racket? He could probably make detective if he busted the ring and he’d probably need someone who wasn’t immediately recognizable on the ground to help, wouldn’t he? It’s a good deal, she says, and Graham’s wont to agree.

“It was not!” Emma says, when Snow tells her. Snow’s face falls a bit, as if she had been expecting more gratitude.

“You’d rather take jail time? I was acting in your best interest!” Snow says.

“You were acting without my opinion!” Emma says, “Like you always do! Who gave you the right to make deals in my name? This was my problem to handle, not yours! I didn’t ask for your opinion, didn’t even tell you about it. I’m sure someone ratted me out to you and then you just decided to do what you thought was best, without ever giving a thought about what I would want!”

It’s an argument a decade festering. Snow doesn’t quite get it, it seems, because she says, “I’m your mother. It’s my job to do what’s best for you.”

* * *

“Please let me stay here.” Emma says on Ruby’s doorstep. She’s got her duffel slung over her shoulder.

“Went that well, huh?” Ruby asks, stepping aside to let her in.

“You know Snow. Her way or, well, her way. I picked the third option - highway. Except I’ve been conscripted into community service so not the literal highway.”

“Granny’ll probably make you work the kitchen in a few days.” Ruby warns. “Better than rent though.”

“S’fine. Looks like I’m stuck here until Graham gets credit for some stupid bust he wants to make. It seems like criminal negligence to help that boy make detective.”

Ruby laughs at that, “Yeah, that’s why he was assigned to historically crime-free Summerlands. He’s best at writing traffic tickets and looking into white-collar crime, not smuggling rings.”

Emma squints suspiciously, “How did you-”

“It’s the Summerlands. There are very few secrets here. All we got is a futon.” Ruby calls from the other side of the room, “That okay?”

“Yeah. By the way,” Emma says.

“Hm?” Ruby busies herself with getting some bedsheets from a cabinet.

“Who’s Daniel?”

Ruby drops the bedsheets. It’s a pretty damning tell. “Who told you that?” She asks, and Emma gets the feeling that it was the wrong person.

“Snow said that maybe now, Daniel could rest.” Emma says.

Emma wasn’t aware that Ruby ever got angry, but she can see the same series of steps that Regina takes whenever something is just Too Much. Breathe mindfully, count to ten. Nope, okay, Ruby’s just going to grab Emma and drag her along then. That’s cool too.

* * *

“I’m holding an intervention.” Ruby declares. They’ve sort of broken into Regina’s house? Ruby had a key though, so Emma might be legally safe. “Because you two dumbs can’t seem to manage basic communication skills.”

“Emma, please tell Regina where you fucked up.”

“Hey!” Emma starts to say, but a look from Ruby shuts her right up. Ruby can be somewhat terrifying when need be. “Uh. I broke into your shop and drunkenly stole your stuff. Sorry.” She mumbles that last part.

“I’m sorry, could you please repeat that?” Ruby says.

“Geez, I said I’m sorry. I’ll pay for it and stuff, and I’m going to, I don’t know, apparently reduce the already nonexistent crime rate to make up for it.” Emma finishes.

“Great. Regina, can you please tell Emma why you’re so mad at her?”

“Because she broke into my shop, tattooed an incredibly tacky apple on the both of us, and then tried to sneak away after?”

Ruby rolls her eyes and levels that stare at Regina, who is apparently also not immune to it.

“Because she tatted it in a very classless area?”

The stare continues.

“It’s complicated.” Regina grouses.

“Un-complicate it.” Ruby insists, “Because you two should at least be on the same level if you are going to continue flooding the Facebook group with your drama.”

Regina shifts uncomfortably, palms an eye, and says, “I had a soulmate.”

And what.

“Sort of.” Regina says, “We weren’t, soulmates in the conventional sense, not like this.” She gestures between her and Emma, “but maybe it was better, because we picked each other.”

Emma can get that, but it still stings, to know that her soulmate had picked someone else over her because what the fuck was the point of this then?

“That meant no marks, but we could still get tattoos. So we both got one, of the same thing, to prove to ourselves that we were just as good as marked for each other. It was on the hip, you know, where the apple is now.”

“And his name?” Ruby presses, although Emma doesn’t need for Regina to say it, she can already guess-

“Daniel.” Regina whispers, and if Emma didn’t know what it was already, she would have missed it.

“Great.” Ruby seems done with her scary face, “This has been emotionally exhausting and I am not even an immediate party. I am going to get a drink. Emma, you’re not allowed. Regina, come if you want and we’ll make Emma drive you home later.” and Ruby marches out.

And Emma is now keenly aware of how much she’s fucked this up, even if it was accidental and without any malice. She should say something, apologize for the situation, but it doesn’t seem like it would be enough. She’s still gathering her thoughts when Regina speaks again.

“Please leave.” And Regina sounds tired.

Emma thinks she shouldn’t leave, but they’re not the kind of people to each other where Emma should have stayed either.

Emma leaves.


	8. Chapter 8

Emma doesn’t know how she went from a relatively uncommitted week in the Summerlands to…this. She has her meeting with Graham early in the morning, where he makes her sign a bunch of papers agreeing to not sue the department, not tell anyone what she’s doing, and other legalese.

The gist of it is, there’ve been an alarming number of exotic fish purchases and thefts around the area. Authorities suspect that they’re getting in and out through the Summerlands port, but they can’t suss out the exact motive or means. Graham thinks that if he puts Emma on dock watch, they’ll be able to get the breakthrough information he needs to crack the case.

Emma is skimming through the case file while Graham is talking. He doesn’t seem to have noticed that they already have informants on the docks.

Honestly, criminal negligence. But he deputizes her and she gets a cheap badge, so that’s kind of cool.

* * *

Emma also has been suckered into Snow’s War Room, a dubious gathering of Snow’s allies banding together in an equally dubious bid to…change a listicle rating? Emma’s going to have to talk to Ruby more if she’s going to be stuck here for the conceivable future.

Snow’s plan is…kind of ridiculous. At a high level, it consists of convincing Karen, who will convince Debra, who will update the listicle. Nowhere in Snow’s multipart powerpoint, which took the better part of lunch to go through, does it mention _how_ they’ll go about doing this.

Emma tries to mention on the “Expected ROI” page that they don’t even have any proof that this will improve business because people who buy bouquets on the regular are probably not the same people who get marks. Snow brushes her off and everyone gives her a glare.

It’s only Day 1 and Emma is seriously debating becoming a fugitive of the state.

* * *

“Hey, kid.” David says. “You doing okay? I know you and your mother don’t always see eye to eye, but she’s trying.”

“Hey yourself.” She says, “I could ask you the same thing. You doing okay after your uh, accident?”

“Better than that goat.” He says. “Speaking of, I went there and only found three goats. I remember you saying two died, but did you find the sheep too?”

“…the what?”

* * *

Regina would like to return to the days when she could sleep through her neighbors opening shop, but it seems like ever since Emma returned, Regina is cursed to a life where someone will be banging on her door at an ungodly hour in the morning.

Who will it be this time, she wonders. Smart money is on Ruby, because Emma had left, tail tucked, and wouldn’t dare come back.

“Regina!”

And this is why Regina doesn’t gamble. Before she can get any words out or her door into Emma’s face, Emma says “There were sheep too!”

Regina doesn’t even hesitate, slams the door in Emma’s face and goes back to sleep.

* * *

“Sheep, Ruby! Sheep! The goats weren’t enough, they had to have sheep too?” Emma has not gotten over this.

Ruby makes a sympathetic sound and reaches under the counter to pour Emma shot of what is almost certainly moonshine. She pours it into Emma’s coffee. “At least you didn’t promise to find those too.”

“Sheep!” Emma says again.

“Yes, honey, I gathered. But don’t worry, they can’t hurt you here. You’ve got other things to worry about now, like doing Graham’s job for him.”

Emma groans at that, “He tried to assign me to the docks, never mind that we have people there already. A…Grumpy? Who the fuck is Grumpy? Who names their kid Grumpy?”

Ruby looks at the case file. Emma is pretty sure this goes against whatever contract she signed but the Summerlands is so woefully against code that she’s also pretty sure no one gives a fuck.

“It’s probably a code name.” Ruby points out, “Did you get a code name? I hope it’s cooler than your badge.”

“My badge is awesome!” Emma protests, mostly on principle. It’s kind of tacky, actually. Cheap plastic and cheaper metallic paint.

“I am pretty sure Hansel and Gretel got one when they visited the station for a school assignment.” Ruby says.

“Anyway!” Emma says, “I guess I should, I dunno, find Grumpy? And then see why we haven’t been able to get any information on this. Exotic fish smugglers can’t be that subtle.”

Ruby shrugs, “You’d be surprised. Anyway, hold the fort for me? I’m going to take this coffee to Regina.”

Oh. That too, “How is she?” Emma asks.

“Well, she’s not here and I’m taking coffee to her so, do the math, yeah?” And she’s off before Emma can say anything else.

“Wait! Ruby! How do I-”

Granny chooses at this moment to come out, gaze sweeping the room before landing on a very uncomfortable Emma.

“Regina.” Emma manages weakly, and Granny nods in understanding.

“Get in the back, you’re no good to me up here. If you’re living here you’re working here and there are dishes that need to be done.”

This isn’t the worst part of her day, but it’s mindless work and it gives Emma time to reconsider that ‘becoming a fugitive of the state’ idea.

* * *

Grumpy and Graham meet up on this street corner every other week. It’s offensively predictable and can’t possibly be discreet, but here Emma is, waiting for ‘Grumpy’. The street is quiet enough, the only other idling party is Leroy. It makes Emma groan - if Leroy’s here then nothing she does isn’t going to make it onto the Facebook group.

She glares at him, hoping it’s enough of a hint to get him away. He just glares suspiciously back at her. So much for that.

The belltower rings 8. Grumpy is late, but she’s not that surprised. She can’t believe Graham trusted an informant named Grumpy.

8:15. Leroy is still here, watching her kind of creepily. She checks her watch and wonders if Grumpy isn’t going to show. She’ll need to ask Graham just who Grumpy actually is. His real name can’t possibly be Grumpy and it’s the Summerlands. Graham is bound to know-

“You waitin’ for someone?” Leroy asks. Jesus fuck. Emma jumps a bit, when did Leroy get so close and how did she not notice?

“No.” She says, “You?”

“No.” He parrots. They stare at each other awkwardly for a moment.

“Grumpy?” Emma hazards.

“You ain’t Graham.” Grumpy says.

“You’re not Grumpy!” Emma retorts.

“‘Cause you’re not Graham!”

Emma takes a moment to gaze heavenward. “Graham asked me to help with the investigation.” She says. “So ‘Grumpy’, you wanna tell me why we’ve got no intel on the docks?”

Leroy grunts, “That what Graham told you? That boy’s a stickler for the rules at the worst times and a breaker of them at even worse times, if you can believe that.” He glances over at Emma knowingly. Emma just rolls her eyes.

“Ain’t _nothing_.” Leroy continues, “Just nothing Graham can act on. I’m pretty sure it’s Hook.”

“…Who?”

Leroy sighs, “Captain Hook. No one knows his real name, only that the _Jolly Roger_ docks here every other week, the crew on and offloading cargo in the dead of night. There’re too many guards to sneak on board without being caught, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard water sloshing around in those crates. You can’t tell me that’s not suspicious.”

Emma is inclined to agree, “What’d Graham say?”

Leroy rolls his eyes this time, “Get this. I bring this information to the boy, and he uses his fancy computer to look up the manifest because piracy still needs a front. The _Jolly Roger_ brings in fucking _goldfish_. Claims they’re for pet stores, and that checks out. The PetSmart in the county over received one of those crates. ‘Course, Graham sees this and tells me ‘no smuggler would use such an obvious front’. I’d give up something fierce to knock some smarts into that boy.”

Emma would throw something into that pool too, to be honest. “Okay but if the ship’s clean, then it’s got to have a captain, right? That’s Hook? God, who even calls themselves Hook?”

“Captain’s one William Smee, obviously a front man. I couldn’t tell you who’s actually running the show, but Smee once tripped over nothing and then looked around for someone to blame. Actually looked confused when he couldn’t find anyone.” Leroy grimaces, “My next drink that it’s not Smee.”

This is all good information, much to Emma’s surprise. “Not that I’m not impressed,” she starts, “but aren’t you…well, you tend to…”

“I’m the street drunk? Girlie, you’ve tried to outdrink me. You think me on a normal day is anywhere near drunk? It’s easier to do this job when everyone expects you to be a lecherous haunt. We can’t all be swanky bounty hunters for hire on google, can we?”

“Okay, that’s not really how my job goes either, but we’ll just drop it. So…now what? If you’ve got all this info, it can’t be that hard to get evidence that we can actually use.”

Leroy shrugs, “Graham’s not going to do anything about this, so you get to do his job for him so that they can promote him out of here. Then maybe we can all finally fucking go home. You be careful, girlie, I got a buddy in Exotic Animal Control. Hear they find gators sometimes.” And he saunters off.

Emma can’t believe she has to process this.

* * *

“So…Is Leroy like a secret agent or something?” Ruby asks. “I can kind of see that. Deep cover. Well played, Mr. Leroy, or should I say….Grumpy.”

“If you tell anyone, I’ll arrest you.” Emma threatens.

“I highly doubt your souvenir badge gives you any authority to arrest me.” Ruby says with no fear because she’s correct.

“Just don’t tell anyone!” Emma stresses and Ruby pantomimes zipping her lips shut and throwing away the zipper. An effect ruined when she opens her mouth again.

“So what’re you going to do, Jr. Agent Swan? Just how will you solve the dastardly curious case of the exotic fish smugglers? Inquiring minds wish to know.” Ruby asks in a deep reporter voice. It’s actually quite good.

Emma doesn’t really know the answer to that. It’s folly to report to Graham, who knows all of this already. She knows there’s a shady character who calls himself “Captain Hook” who’s smuggling in some specie of exotic fish and that’s about it. If she knew more about Captain Hook, she might be able to-

“I’m going to find out who Captain Hook is.” She declares. Ruby golf claps.


	9. Chapter 9

Finding people who don’t want to be found is something Emma knows she does well. On an easy job, it usually means trawling social media for human stupidity and a car boot. On a hard job, it means stakeouts and takeout.

(This is a hard job. Even if Emma can’t get past the fact that someone branded themselves as Captain Hook.)

Maine is colder than she remembered, exacerbated by the chill that lurks on the waterline and watching the _Jolly Roger_ unload cargo is about as exciting as watching paint dry. They’re efficient and they know how to do their jobs. It’s boring as can be, but Emma’s been on enough stakeouts to know how to keep herself awake. It would have been nice though, to have a partner in this. Idly, she wonders if she should call Ruby. It’s 3 in the morning though, and Ruby would probably level a string of profanity profane enough that nothing that had come before or that could come after would ever match it. Probably not a good idea.

But when she blinks, they’ve somehow shifted from unloading to loading without Emma noticing. A quick glimpse at the clock tells Emma that she’s dozed but for fifteen minutes or so. Not the worst but if she misses this opportunity, she’s got another two weeks before she can try again.

Emma hesitates once more before finally hitting the ‘Call’ button. It rings, once, twice, and then clicks into someone groaning tiredly.

“Rubes, I’m dying over here. Your fucking Maine winters suck all manner of animal parts.” That should be enough to set a tired and cranky Ruby off. It’ll be more interesting than watching paint dry in reverse.

There’s a longer pause than Emma would expect, “Why are you calling me at…3 in the morning?” Regina’s voice asks.

Emma checks her call log. That call definitely went to Ruby. “Uh. Is Ruby there?”

“No. Go away, Emma. I don’t even want to know how you got this number. Don’t call again.”

Emma can hear a shuffling that sounds like Regina attempting to end the call but fumbling because it’s 3AM and buttons are hard. “No, wait! I mean, can we talk? About, y’know, things?”

The shuffling stops, “Emma, it’s too early or too late for this.” Emma isn’t sure if Regina’s referring to the time or the situation. Maybe both.

“Uhm. Okay.” Emma says, waiting for Regina to hang up. Regina doesn’t, much to her surprise.

Instead, a sigh, “Just say it, Emma. Might as well get it over with now that you’ve woken me up.”

Emma hasn’t planned this far yet, what with the myriad of strange issues she’s had to deal with in the last two or so days. “I just, I guess I wanted to say I’m sorry. For the situation.”

“That’s not really an apology, Emma.”

“How was I supposed to know?” Emma asks, “It’s not like I had any indication you just happened to have a tattoo in that spot!”

Another pause, “That still doesn’t negate the fact that you’ve gone and undone it, haven’t you? It doesn’t change what’s happened. You’re right, it wasn’t intentional, but it was still done. And that’s sort of how your family is, isn’t it? They just do things and ignore the consequences of their actions because they surely were in the right.”

It’s a familiar accusation, one that Emma’s leveled before. She’s just never had it leveled at her before. Before Emma can say anything, she spots a new motion out of the corner of her eye.

“Shit. Regina, I’m so sorry but I’m at a stakeout and-”

Regina hangs up. Emma probably deserved it. No time to think about it now though. Some of the crew members are getting into cars. There’s no way she can trail them; even if she weren’t driving a bright yellow beetle, there aren’t any other cars on the road at this time. Instead, she hauls herself out of her bug and into the cold Maine weather. It’s actually not colder because the Bug has terrible insulation. She scrambles up a fire escape ladder and onto the roof, pulling out a map of the Summerlands she bought earlier in the day. Here, she has enough of a vantage point to see roughly where the cars head to. She’ll be able to scout them out tomorrow at her leisure.

* * *

“What did you do?” Emma asks Ruby, first thing in the morning. She’s just come off of stakeout and very desperately needs a better meal than cold leftover Chinese.

“Uh, nothing illegal? Probably?” Ruby says.

“I tried to call you last night and instead called _Regina_.” Emma hisses, swiping grumpily at the coffee Ruby pours.

“Oh shit, that worked? Nice! I have all my calls after 2 routed to Regina. I had no idea if it worked or if it was just dropping calls, but good to know. Thanks”

“Why would you do this to me?” Emma groans.

“To be fair, you were just collateral damage. I was personally trying to avoid drunk people calling me for rides. That was a big thing a few years ago for some reason. I figured anyone calling would be too drunk to actually ask for me specifically and I’d just offload the task of herding drunk people back to their houses to Regina. Then everyone went and became responsible, apparently. Did you at least talk?” Ruby pats her on the back unsympathetically.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Emma mumbles. “And now you owe me for this shit. I’ve got a few locations I think are promising. You’re gonna scout them with me after shift.”

Ruby shrugs, “A small price for my beauty sleep, Emma. Trivial, even.”

Emma flips her off.

* * *

The way the Summerlands is set up, it seems that no matter where Emma tries to sleep, there will always be far too much sunlight streaming into the room. It’s bullshit because despite the ridiculous brightness levels, Maine is still fucking freezing. Emma gives up on sleep and chooses the next best thing - enough caffeine to kill off a small garden.

The coffee at _Just The Drip_ is overpriced and Emma really can’t bring herself to care as she downs her fourth espresso. Ruby’s got another hour on her shift, which gives Emma an hour to finalize their search plans.

“Ah, I was wondering when I would get to meet our newest resident wanderer.” A voice interrupts. She looks up to see a guy really dedicated to bringing the leather look back into mainstream consciousness standing by her with two cups in his hands.

“Refill?” He asks.

“Uh. No thanks.” Emma says, pointedly looking back at her maps.

“Road trip?” He asks. “Heard you’ve a ball and chain now. Something to do with breaking and entering?”

“Something like that.” Emma says, with as much offputting as she can put into it, and yet-

“You ever hear of Kerouac? He travelled the road too. Interesting man. I think you’d like his work.”

Oh god.

“Killian!” Another voice calls out, “Stop bothering her!”

“Just making small talk, love.” He says, turning around to greet the other person.

“Well, stop. She’s clearly busy. Get over here, we’ve got our own things to figure out.” The girl waves at Emma before shoving Killian away. Killian winks at her. Emma pretends not to notice.

* * *

“Emma, I wish you’d told me my murder was on the itinerary. I would have feigned another engagement and not come.” Ruby says, glancing around the warehouses.

“This is where I tracked the cars to.” Emma says in lieu of a response, “It must be where they’re hiding the smuggled goods.”

“And you thought the best thing to do was to take two civilians to check it out?” Ruby asks.

“We were a better option than Graham!”

“That doesn’t make us good options!”

“Well we’re here now! So stop complaining and help me find some evidence. The sooner we do the sooner we get out of here.”

Ruby groans but complies, half-assedly rifling through some papers. “How many of these ‘unlocked’ warehouses do you think we’ll have to go through?”

* * *

Ruby’s surprised they make it to three before someone interrupts.

“Ruby?” A voice calls out, and Ruby panics.

“Keep watch.” Emma had said. So when Ruby hears her named called, she jumps and starfishes in an attempt to shield Emma, picking a lock, from any witnesses.

“Mulan! Fancy meeting you here! What are you doing here?” Ruby asks, “Thought you’d be done with your deliveries today! It’s pretty late, isn’t it?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” Mulan says, wary, “Diner work doesn’t normally take you into the industrial streets.”

“Oh, you know, just uh, scouting the area. You never know when the real estate market’s going to make it’s way here!”

Mulan clearly doesn’t buy it but she’s also clearly not interested in knowing what’s actually happening. “Look, I got called in for an urgent delivery, so if you could just stop trying to break into the warehouse, I’d like to get this delivered and go home.”

Emma and Ruby both sheepishly step aside. Ruby blatantly tries to watch Mulan key in the code, but Mulan smartly shields the keypad. “Stop that.” She admonishes, “I’d report you to Officer Graham, but that sounds like a lot of paperwork and hassle for no actual arrest.”

“You’re taking this very casually for someone who’s studying Criminal Justice.” Ruby says because why not push their luck while she’s out here? Emma makes a cutting motion across her throat, which Ruby ignores.

“The law only matters to the extent that it can be enforced.” Mulan sounds like she’s reciting from a textbook or an argument she’s had to say too many times to not know by heart. She pulls the garage door open and the ramp of her truck down. Once the crate’s in and she’s locked it up again, she makes a shooing motion. “Get out of here before I actually have to call Graham. I didn’t see anything this time. Emma, Ruby’s a terrible lookout. Get a better one next time.”

Ruby waves goodbye to Mulan as she drives off.

“You could have ogled her less obviously.” Emma says, swatting at Ruby.

Ruby shrugs, “Mulan and I go way back. She’s cool with it.”

Emma thinks Mulan’s just tired of everyone’s shit, but maybe she’s just projecting. And anyway, Emma’s got better things to worry about - there’d definitely been a sloshing sound in the crate that Mulan moved.

She’s absolutely certain that she’s found their smugglers.


	10. Chapter 10

Regina is closing up shop when Ruby corners her and says, “You know, the point of an intervention is to make things better, not start the Cold War again.”

“Only when the mediator is any good at their job.”

“You wound me, Regina! It’s deep. I’m bleeding out, the world is growing dim!” Ruby dramatically swoons.

“Off my stoop then.” Regina nudges her with a foot, “Blood’s a pain in the ass to clean out.”

“Savage, Regina.” But she straightens, “Your girl’s off to right the wrongs plaguing Storybrooke. By which I mean she’s gone to find out who our favorite dread pirate, Captain Hook, is.”

Regina frowns, “How does she not know it’s Killian? You didn’t tell her?”

Ruby waves dismissively, “This is a lot more fun. I notice you didn’t argue the ‘your girl’ bit.” She waggles her eyebrows.

“Stop that. Aren’t you worried about what’s going to happen when she finds him?” Regina asks, swatting at Ruby, who only cackles in response before literally skipping off, blatantly being ominous about the thing.

Regina is tempted to throw something at her, but all she has are her keys and Ruby would just make off with those too.

* * *

Regina doesn’t know why people insist on waking her up with the sun. She opens her shop late for a reason but here Emma is, the rising sun framing her eager face. Again. Regina attempts to slam the door in her face. Again.

“I have Hardy’s!” Emma says, waving the greasy bag at Regina through the crack in the door.

And, well, Regina does like Hardy’s. She begrudgingly lets Emma in, who sighs with relief as if she wasn’t sure cheap burgers were going to get her through the door. Regina thinks she should have said no regardless. No sense in letting Emma realize that Regina can, quite likely, be readily convinced with fast food.

“You have until-” Regina peers into the bag, “-I finish my burgers and fries before I kick you out.”

“Actually, one of them is-” Emma tries to say, but Regina keeps the bag out of her grasp and glares. Emma crumples easily under the look.

Emma launches into a story about illegal smuggling and stakeouts and occasionally steals some of Regina’s fries. What Regina gets from the conversation is “Come with me on a stakeout and maybe run down some bad guys.” As if Regina would ever chase anyone down on foot.

Regina scoffs into her fries because it’s a ridiculous plot out of a B-list dime store noir story and Regina refuses to be a part of it.

* * *

Regina remembers a time when her resolve was ironclad, when she bent this world to her mercurial whims. A better time when she wasn’t being woken up at ungodly hours to do ridiculous things. The smell of Hardy’s in the car is but a small comfort.

“So.” Emma says, having finally reclaimed some of the large amount of Hardy’s she’s bought, “What do you think he’s smuggling? Graham says exotic fish but that could mean anything. Do you think we’ll find like, sharks?”

“Arowana.” Regina says, but Emma keeps talking.

“Like, we’ll bust into some rich CEO’s office and the wall behind him will be an aquarium that conveniently provides mood lighting and- wait what?”

“Arowana.” Regina repeats. Emma has to google it.

“…How do you know this?” She asks. “Why didn’t you say anything? Why are we here?”

“Because Killian’s operation is one of the worst kept secrets in Storybrooke. Because you didn’t ask. Because you bribed me with Hardy’s and I accepted out of the kindness of my heart.” Regina answers.

Emma sputters as Regina finishes the last of her fries and steals one of Emma’s for good measure. “Come on.” She says, “I’ll introduce you.”

Regina gets out of the car. It takes Emma a second. Regina can hear her fumbling with the manual locks and cursing Regina for not locking her side but locking her door would have ruined the Aesthetic.

What a Storybrooke thing of her to think, she muses, as Emma runs to catch up.

The work on the ship doesn’t slow as Regina approaches, but someone does lob their head over to look at her. She waves. Emma can hear someone call out, “Oy! You got a visitor, captain! Regina’s here!”

Another head peers over the side, “Regina, love! I wasn’t expecting you today. Your shipment’s not due until next week, you know that. And I see you’ve brought a guest with you. Lovely to meet you again, Emma.”

This is all very, very surreal for Emma, who can only muster up a “You! Kerouac guy!”

“Oh is that what he’s using these days? When I first met him, it was Falkner. Good to see he’s branched out since then.” Regina says.

Killian grins and waves down, “Ah, so you remember me! I do make quite an impression, don’t I?”

“You’re Captain Hook?” She also manages.

Killian…rappels down. From a rope that seems to have materialized out of nowhere? That he seemingly keeps for this sole purpose? Next to her, Regina rolls her eyes as if he’s done this before. Because of course he has.

He lands and brushes some imaginary dirt off of his leather jacket. “Guilty as charged,” he says, bowing deeply, “I’m told there’s an aura of mystery about it. I would be happy to dispel some of that say, over dinner?”

Regina smacks him, “Get over yourself.” she says, not as sternly as Emma would have liked.

“Alas, Regina, your words reveal the harshness of their mistress!” he cries. Regina just continues to look exasperated. Emma can’t believe this is happening right now.

“Killian! Did I hear Regina’s here?” Another voice rings out from above. Looking up, Emma spots a patch of red. She can’t see the face, but strongly suspects that it’s the girl who pulled Killian away in the coffee shop. The girl also rappels down, at which point Emma can finally make out her face and confirm her suspicions.

“Hello!” She says, holding out her hand. Emma automatically takes it. The girl has a surprisingly strong grip. “We haven’t formally met, but I’m Ariel! I’m a doctoral candidate of marine biology at the local uni, specializing in fish population changes in the Northeast and how they impact the global ecosystem, as well as-”

“The cops are onto you.” Regina says to interrupt.

Ariel stops talking and looks somewhat alarmed. Looking at Killian, she says, “I thought Leroy was handling it?”

What.

“Leroy?” Emma asks, her voice might be a pitch too high, an edge a bit too hysterical.

Killian rubs at the stubble on his chin in a way that’s very clearly been practiced. “Hm. Yes, so he was. Smee!” He yells, “Smee! Get me Leroy!”

What.

Leroy takes the boardwalk, because he’s apparently less insane than either Killian or Ariel. “What?” He asks grumpily before noticing Emma, “Oh shit.”

“Ah. So I see you two have met as well.” Killian says.

“You’re supposed to be the informant!” Emma accuses.

“Yeah, well, I couldn’t tell you the truth, could I? Didn’t know if you were some double agent or something.”

“You’re supposed to be Graham’s informant but you’re working for Hook! You’re literally, by definition, a double agent!” She screeches.

He huffs at that and instead of replying, says “You’re getting sloppy, Killian, if Barbie Bounty Hunter here found you out.”

“Actually, that would be me.” Regina says. “She’d find out sometime, Leroy, don’t give me that look. Better it be here while we’re here to explain what’s happening than have her put the pieces together and go to Graham with them.”

Leroy grumbles a bit, which Emma takes as acceptance of the situation. The situation which she has very little idea about. “Will someone please explain to me what’s going on here?” She asks.

Instead of an answer, she gets the sound of a truck rolling up and Mulan getting out. Mulan takes one look at their gathering and says “Nope.” before getting back in the truck and driving away, doing a very efficient and crisp multi-point turn in order to turn the truck around before speeding away a little too fast.

Emma wishes she could do the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You haven't lived until you've read these articles:
> 
> <https://longreads.com/2016/07/18/a-fish-so-coveted-people-have-smuggled-kidnapped-and-killed-for-it/>   
>  <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/07/dragon-fish-most-expensive-arowana-emily-voigt/>


	11. Chapter 11

Because Storybrooke doesn’t believe in practical and sane solutions to problem, the only explanation Emma managed out of that entire debacle was a vague assurance from Killian that “It would all be made clear tonight.” to which Emma found herself outvoted when everyone else had nodded in agreement. This does not help her current predicament, which is her afternoon at the station and meeting with Graham.

The car ride home had been stilted. Regina wasn’t willing to answer Emma’s questions and Emma didn’t have the temper to make small talk otherwise.

(Emma had been so sure that she could have bribed the answers out of Regina over lunch, but Regina had let her pay and then said nothing. Asshole.)

“You found out nothing?” Graham asks her, disheartened. He looks like a kicked puppy and it takes all of Emma’s resolve not to tell him everything.

“Nothing. Sorry Graham. Looks like the operation was a bust.” She lies through her teeth.

Graham continues to look like a kicked puppy. That was kicked once more for good measure. “Okay.” He says, “Keep me updated. And remember to fill out your paperwork.”

This leaves Emma with a stack of paperwork that’s exactly as incomprehensible as she would expect government issue forms to be and the afternoon to deal with them. She’s in the middle of figuring out the best way to commit to perjury when the chime on the door rings. She looks up to see a somewhat elderly man walk in. Graham is nowhere to be found, probably off being a sad kicked puppy elsewhere.

“Uh. Can I help you?”

He appraises her. “You’re a new face around these parts. Our newest addition, I presume? Emma, was it?”

That immediately puts her on alert - she’s never met this man in her life. “That depends on who’s asking.”

He smiles. It comes out a little sly, “No need to be so suspicious, dearie. I am what you could call an invested party in our quaint little community and so I make it my business to know what’s happening. It is in that endeavor that I find myself here today to inquire about where we are on the exotic fish smuggling case.”

Emma is also pretty sure that knowledge of this case should be restricted to the department, but then again, this _is_ Storybrooke. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to disclose that information.” She says.

He looks at her a little more closely this time. It’s a bit unnerving. “An interesting decision.” He finally says, “I hope you don’t come to regret it.” And then leaves, suddenly as he came.

Emma is reminded of Mulan’s truck, doing a perfect multipoint turn to get the fuck out of here.

* * *

“You’re going to the Night Market dressed like that?” Regina asks, stepping into the station and walking right to Emma’s desk.

Emma wonders when she got a desk and when everyone knew she had a desk. She suspects that the two points in time aren’t so far apart. “The what now?” Emma asks, still a little baffled at the day.

Regina rolls her eyes, as Regina is wont to do, “The thing tonight that Killian told you to come to. It’s the Night Market. There’s a Facebook event.”

Emma checks her phone and huh, so there is - right in the “Happening in Storybrooke!” public group which Emma is actually a part of.

`NIGHT MARKET - Pop-Up Shop Galore!`

“So, uh, what is this exactly?” She asks.

“Storybrooke capitalization of the rapidly gentrifying region and rising tourism industry at its finest.” says, without a hint of sarcasm.

Emma thinks they really need to stop talking to Ruby.

“That…tells me nothing, actually, but thanks.” Emma says, “Speaking of mysterious things - everyone knows everyone in Storybrooke, right?”

“Unfortunately.” Regina confirms.

“Right, well, this guy walked in and called himself an ‘invested party’ and I dunno, gave off some bad vibes.”

Regina quirks at this, a slight tilt of her head giving away the shifting gears of her thoughts. “Did he say anything else? Ask for anything? Did you tell him anything?”

Regina’s gone from passably friendly to bad cop at interrogation and Emma struggles to keep up with the whiplash, “What? No, I didn’t say anything. And then he said I’d made an interesting decision and that he hoped I wouldn’t regret it, whatever that means. Kind of shady, to be honest. Is there a mob presence in Storybrooke? Please don’t tell me there’s a mob presence in Storybrooke.”

Emma doesn’t think Graham can handle a mob presence in Storybrooke, which means Emma will have to handle a mob presence in Storybrooke and Emma just wants to speed out of this crazy neighborhood into the sunset.

Regina presses a hand to a temple and kind of misses, hitting her eye instead. She rolls with it and just drags her hand down. Not that Emma’s paying close attention.

“Of all the days? He couldn’t have come tomorrow? Shit. I don’t have time for this right now. Emma, you’re going to want to be a little more dressed than that. I’ll come pick you up at 7.” And then Regina’s out again without waiting for an answer.

Wait, was that a date? Did she just implicitly agree to a date?

–

“Did Regina just ask me out to a date?” Emma asks Ruby’s voicemail, “I mean, ‘get dressed up and I’ll pick you up’ sounds kind of like date material, even though for all I know Regina’s going to take me out to a field somewhere and bury my body because no one will tell me what the Night Market actually is. Although if she were going to do that, she probably should have done it the last time we were out alone in the woods. That sounds kind of sketchy but you know why-”

Emma’s rambling and the voicemail cuts off. She makes a frustrated sound and dials again. “Man, whoever thought three minutes for voicemail was enough should be fired. So anyway, do you think it’s a da-”

There’s a clicking sound and there’s no way it’s been three minutes.

“Emma. You’ve been on speaker.” Regina says, calmer than that statement deserves.

“What? Why is voicemail on speaker?”

“Ruby wired her phone to lead to the landline. Granny still has a home landline, since I know you’ll be wondering who owns a landline in this time and era now.”

“Someone needs to revoke Ruby’s technology privileges.” Emma says, trying to move past the embarrassment, “And why are you at Ruby’s anyway, listening to her voicemails? There something you’re not telling me?”

“Yes!” Ruby says in the background, “But we’re handling it! Have fun on your date, Emma! Be home by 10, young lady!”

Regina makes an outraged noise in the background as Ruby hangs up the phone. Subsequent calls reach a disconnected message, which means Ruby has no doubt dramatically unplugged the landline.

7 can’t come fast enough.

* * *

7 comes too fast and Emma still hasn’t decided what she’s going to wear. At this rate, it’s going to be a roulette roll ending with whatever Emma’s wearing by the time Regina gets here.

Regina knocking at the door means Emma will be wearing this very nice blouse. She doesn’t remember owning or bringing it but with everything that’s been going on, Emma doesn’t fault herself for forgetting.

“Interesting choice in wardrobe.” Regina says, eyes lingering a little too long on the blouse.

“Thanks,” Emma says, owning it, “Dressy enough for you?”

Regina hums, infuriatingly vague as ever. “Come on then, we’ll be late if we don’t hurry.” And she turns around and starts walking, an equally infuriating action because they both know Emma’ll follow.

“I don’t even know where we’re going!” Emma says.


	12. Chapter 12

The Night Market is, apparently, half-exactly what it says on the tin. Pop-Up shops was the correct description of the stalls present but galore was not. There are maybe six stalls, nested in a small lot between two buildings’ alleyways. There’s a light scent of filth that’s masked by the food sizzling on a grill.

“Emma! Regina! Glad you could make it, loves” Killian greets them as they cross the threshold.

Regina easily brushes him off, “Yes, hello, Killian. We’re here about the grand finale to this afternoon’s dramatic reveal.”

He makes a face, “Ah, you see, we’re all booked up for the night-”

Regina makes a _tsk_ sound, “Killian, I’ve indulged your love affair with theatrics this far. It wouldn’t do to spoil the entire thing at the end now, would it?”

“Oh, Regina, you always drive a hard bargain. And honest, love, I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He winks in a way that Emma’s sure he thinks if charming, “I’ll make it happen.” And he bows stupidly deep again to usher them in.

It’s a weird mix of faux classiness in a yard that’s supposed to house dumpsters and Emma really, really, doesn’t know what’s happening.

* * *

“The chef’s table.” Killian gestures to a sad looking bench, “Only the best for my favorite ladies.”

Regina takes the chair he pulls out for her. Emma glares at him until he releases his hold on hers and then pulls her own chair out.

“He’s harmless, you know.” Regina says while they wait. There seems to be a presentation table in front of them, although it remains unmanned. Regina and Emma are seated the closest - around them, Emma can hear the sound of smartphones taking photos and the din of hushed awe.

“The man’s a smuggler of god knows what and you think he’s harmless?” Emma asks incredulously.

Regina shrugs at that, “The illegality of something shouldn’t determine the character of the man. You’ll see.”

A commotion upfront interrupts their conversation. “Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, thank you for joining us on this auspicious night!” Killian says, his voice booming in the square, “I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath for tonight’s delights and let me assure you, they are some of the finest delights I’ve had the pleasure of bringing back for your viewing and purchasing pleasure! But enough talk! Let’s welcome my lovely assistant, here with our first item of the day-”

From behind a curtain comes…Mulan. Of course. “Not your lovely assistant, asshole.” Mulan grunts out. It’s a back-and-forth they’ve had in front of an audience many times over and they say their lines with practised ease.

Mulan hauls out all the crates from the back and when she’s done, she sets up by the grill that Emma had seen on the way in. It’s been cleared now and Mulan sets to frying something on them.

“Is that…The arowana?” Emma asks.

Mulan grunts. Emma takes that as confirmation. “What are you even doing here?” Emma asks over the sound of hissing oil, “I thought you were studying Criminal Justice!”

“Why does everyone feel the need to bring that up?” Mulan asks.

“I dunno, it just seems like you’d be the type to have a stick up your ass.” Emma says.

“Thanks.”

“Just being honest.”

“Shut up and eat your fish.” Mulan slaps a plate in front of Emma. Emma pokes at it experimentally.

“It won’t kill you.” Regina says and cuts into it. Emma follows suit.

“What the actual fuck. This is terrible.” Emma says, holding back the urge to spit it back out. Mulan shrugs and keeps on frying.

“It is. Mulan, really, all this time and you couldn’t improve the recipe?” Regina says, still eating bites of her fish as if it wasn’t the saddest fillet Emma’s ever at the misfortunate of consuming.

“People want authenticity.” Mulan says.

“I don’t think frying them on a grill is authentic, Mulan.” Regina points out.

Mulan shrugs, “They seem to like it well enough.”

And yeah, besides Emma and Regina, everyone else seems pretty happy with their plate, although they also seem to be spending more time taking the perfect shot of it rather than actually eating it. Killian helpfully goes around with a portable lighting kit and some accessories.

It’s all starting to make sense. “This is all a cash grab!” Emma accuses.

“10 points to Gryffindor. Very nice blouse by the way. Very Regina.” she whispers into Emma’s ear as she slips by to take her plate. Emma wasn’t even aware that Ruby was here.

Wait. Is that why everyone's been staring? Is that why she has this blouse? It must've gotten mixed up when they were doing the goat thing because somehow who was responsible for laundry had come up. No time for that now though-

“Are you really telling me that all this, the smuggling, the secrecy, the very _high risk of getting caught because everyone is posting about it on Instagram_ was about a few extra bucks?”

Regina frowns, “Did you know, that Clark’s pharmacy has been here even longer than Snow’s flower shop? Her shop might be the one everyone thinks of these days, but Clark’s family has been here even before Snow’s.”

“Okay, but I don’t see why-”

“And in the county over, they’ve opened up a pharmacy in their Wal-Mart. Half the cost of Clark’s meds and they even deliver. It’s no wonder that Clark’s struggling to stay in business. The landlord’s talking about raising the rent prices, no doubt a bid to renovate and lease out to some ass with deeper pockets and some boutique store catering to very specific millennial tastes. It’s not a few extra bucks, Emma, it’s about enough extra bucks to keep us all afloat.”

“My, you think so little of me, Regina.” A familiar voice says. The man Emma met before sits down to Regina’s left, “Not that it’s unwarranted, of course. She does speak of truths, after all. Never was one to mince with it.”

“Rumpelstiltskin.” Regina says in greeting. It’s strained in a way Emma hasn’t heard before, and she’s heard Regina deal with all manner of customer and Emma’s mother. This one is harsher, as if whatever glamour Regina uses to deal with Storybrooke’s bullshit can’t quite reach it. “I thought you were out of town until next week.”

“Yes, that would have been convenient, wouldn’t it? I came back early to oversee a few matters and good thing too, it would seem. I’m sure this little food stand is up to health code standards and licensed, yes? And those goods in the back aren’t illicitly passing ownership?”

Ruby stands by Mulan the two of them watching the situation, unsure whether or not to intervene. Mulan’s fish is burning. Around them, the sound of hipsters continues undisturbed.

“Well, far be it from me to tell you how to run your business.” He says, “I do wish you the best of luck though, these are some rough times we live in.” And he saunters off as if he didn’t just threaten everyone.

Regina grits her teeth. “Ruby. I hate this phrase you keep insisting we use. War Room. Finish up here. Get whoever else you think we need.” Ruby gives her a solemn thumbs up. “Emma, get your mother and tell her it’s a War Room. She’ll know.” Emma also gives her a thumbs up, even though she’s not sure what that entails.


	13. Chapter 13

“Emma! There you are! It feels like we haven’t talked in ages.” Snow says when Emma unlocks the door.

“I mean, we talked yesterday, so there’s that.” Emma points out. Snow brushes it aside.

“I meant about the listicle! Have you made any progress on your goals?”

And shit, Emma had forgotten about that in between everything else that happens. The listicle feels like something from a lifetime away, at this point. Emma thinks telling her that would result in another kicked puppy. “War Room.” she says instead.

“Oh! It must be serious then.” Snow says, nodding solemnly, “Let me just grab my coat. Did you need one too, honey? Oh and your father, I think he’s in the backyard let me get him too” She putters off without waiting for a response.

Emma would leave but she actually doesn’t know where this war room thing is happening so she’s stuck waiting around while Snow packs for the apocalypse.

* * *

Snow is still talking about the listicle when they get to Granny’s. Everyone else has already convened. At least, Emma thinks everyone else has convened, judging by the scowl on Regina’s face and the way everyone is staring at their entrance.

“So I think that we’ll be on track for a successful Q4 initiative if-Oh! Regina! I wasn’t expecting you.” Snow looks around furtively. “What’s, what’s going on?” she asks. “I thought we were here to talk about, you know, the _thing.”_ Snow whispers to Emma. Poorly.

Regina rolls her eyes, “Snow, if you wanted to keep your grand scheme about the listicle a secret, you probably shouldn’t have made it a grand scheme.”

Snow blusters, “It’s not, I mean, well what do you have to worry about? You made it!”

Regina has already rolled her eyes, but she attempts to do so further. “Snow, if it means that much to you, I’ll solve your problem right now.”

“Really?” Snow perks up at this, “You’ll ask Debra to rank me higher?”

“Sure, something like that.” Regina pulls out her phone and sends a text message. Not a minute later, a response pings back. Regina types out a quick thanks and then puts her phone back in her pocket. “There. Done. Can we focus now?”

Snow pulls up the article on her phone faster than she should. Because she’s had the article saved to her favorites, of course. Emma leans over to look at Snow’s screen and what’s causing her to make such an indignant face.

“Regina, how did you-” Her Royal Majesty’s is now ranked #1, with The Enchanted Forest trailing at #2.

“I told Debra that everyone knew That Moe’s and Granny’s were must sees, and so there wasn’t any point in listing him in a small shop listicle. She agreed with me and made the appropriate changes. It got you what you wanted, did it not?”

Emma suspects strongly, as does Regina, that what Snow really wanted was to bump Her Royal Majesty’s to #4 in favor of The Enchanted Forest, but says, “Well, hey, look at that, #2. Great job with the plan thing, really, you were even more successful than you thought you’d be.”

They can both appreciate the fuming look on Snow’s face, although it’s a victory that can only be celebrated briefly.

“Rumpelstiltskin knows.” Regina says, turning her attention back to the more pressing concern at hand.

“I knew it!” Leroy bellows, “I knew we couldn’t trust that Swan kid! ‘Don’t worry, Leroy, she’s my soulmate. I trust her.’ And I told you, I fucken’ told ya, ya shouldn’t have trusted her!”

And while it’s kind of nice, if a bit of a shock, to hear that Regina had vouched for her and acknowledged Emma - “Hey! I’m right here-”

“Quiet, blondie!” Leroy snaps. Emma’s going to punch him. Regina puts her face in her hands.

“Enough.” Ruby says, stepping between them, voice eded with that hunter’s focus she so rarely brings out. “We don’t have time for this.”Killian, how’s the Night Market doing?”

“The what?” Snow tries to ask but Ruby puts up a finger to stop her.

He checks his phone, “Well enough. Ariel says they’ve pulled in enough to at least cover the deficit street rent.”

Ruby thinks for a moment, “That’ll have to be enough. Close it down. We’ll make do for the rest of the month with what we can. What do you think, it’s time to shut it all down?”

Killian texts Ariel and says “I’d say so, lass. We had a good run, but I’m afraid the good crocodile and I have a longstanding feud. He’s not one to let these things go and all he needs is one witness to start an investigation I don’t think we’d survive. Ariel and I’ll pack up the ship and set sail. We won’t be returning this time.”

“Where will you go?” Emma asks.

Killian takes on a faraway look, as though one of his heroes is Lord Byron, probably because one of his heroes is, in fact, Lord Byron, “Oh, Ariel’s been talking about living on the high seas and I can’t say I disagree. I think we’ll sail about for a while, commit to a barter economy, see some of those Instagram followers Ariel’s been talking to. She’s got quite a few, you know, over 100k.”

Emma gawks. Killian winks at her, “Care to come along, love? You’d make a dashing seafarer.”

“She would not!” Snow finally interludes, “My daughter will not be going anywhere with you, you, you pirate!”

There’s an awkward silence because well, literally everyone else knows and condones it. Ruby groans, “Regina, I let you make the call because I trust you, but did you really think it was a good idea to let Snow come?”

“Ruby?” Snow asks, betrayal seeping in.

“Snow,” Ruby puts a palm to an eye, “I love you, but these really aren’t matters that concern you.”

“If it concerns Storybrooke, it concerns me-” Snow tries to say.

“No, let me correct myself. These aren’t matters that you’ve bothered to concern yourself with. It’s a nice luxury you have, not having to care about what really goes on in the street, but it’s one I’m afraid the others don’t share. Regina’s been orchestrating all of this, just to try to keep some of the other shops open and you’ve been what, trying to shepherd everyone into making sure you get a good position on some listicle? I’m sorry Snow, I don’t think any of us are on your side today.”

“Emma?” Snow asks and damnit, there’s that kicked puppy look. Emma knows she can’t hesitate for long; that’s as good as a ‘no’.

Fortunately, or perhaps by fated providence, Regina steps in to save Emma, “Not now, Snow. We can talk about this later.” She turns to everyone else, “I asked her here because we need to decide what we’re going to do without the Night Market to keep us afloat and Snow, with the longstanding nature of her family’s involvement in the Summerlands, might have access to the resources we need to keep going.”

“I’ll help in whatever way I can.” Snow says, chest puffing with confidence, “I was thinking, maybe we could run a ‘Keep the Summerlands Weird’ campaign, or-”

“Never mind, this was a terrible idea.” Regina says. “Ruby?”

Ruby hesitates, “We talked about it last night and I said we wouldn’t have to, but I’m running the numbers and…well, we might have to.”

Regina grimaces, “It’s not a good deal, any deal with my mother. You can’t solve a bad deal with an even worse one. We’ll have to pay for it sooner rather than later. But it’s a deal that can be made and it would buy us some more time.”

Everyone murmurs their assent, relief tinging their voices that they’d be safe for now.

And Emma hears, in that statement, that Regina’ll have to pay for it, “Fuck no.” she says.

“Emma, I don’t think you really understand the situation.” Regina says, resigned to her task.

“Nah, but I get enough. You’re gonna sell out to your mother, yeah? And she’ll ask for repayment twiceover and interest on top of it. She sounds like that kind of person. There’s no way I’m gonna let them throw you to the wolves like that. Anyone who wants to martyr you can go through me first.”

It’s enough to stave of those voices, who just a moment ago had been ready to offer Regina to the first altar they saw. A touching gesture, really, but Regina knows there’s no other way and she’s about to say so when Ruby claps her hands.

“Great showing, everyone! Really, truly, a dramatic meeting. Fitting for our ragtag band of merry business owners, brought together by happenstance and rent control. Regina, while the offer is appreciated, Emma’s words have rung true for all of us, I think, and I think I speak for all of us when I say fuck that.”

She clasps Regina’s shoulder in what Regina thinks Ruby thinks is a show of solidarity. It mostly just hurts, “We’ll figure it out, and if we can’t, then we’ll all bear the consequences. Together.”

Regina’s on the verge of tearing up and Emma knows that Regina would hate to be caught out like that, but Ruby’s on top of it.

“Great. Moment over. Let’s get back to our shitstorm, yeah? Leroy, take whoever you need and help Killian and Ariel get packed up. The sooner they’re out of here the safer they’ll be.”

Leroy grunts and beckons at Mulan, “Let’s go, girlie. We got a lot of shit to haul.”

“Why is it always me?” She asks. It’s rhetorical at best. Everyone knows that Mulan’s one of the most competent people on the street and to ask for someone else is to invite damning evidence to their doorstep in the form of a collapsed crate or another.

“Shut it and haul ass. You want to get paid or not?”

“I’m going to remind you that I don’t get paid extra, or even at all for breaking the law.” She says.

Emma must look confused because Mulan helpfully elaborates, “My father bled for this country. There’s enough in its coffers to pay for my college tuition. Justice isn’t cheap in this country and sometimes, it falls on us to make sure it’s met out for those who can’t afford it.”

Ruby waits until Mulan’s left before saying, “Damn, I’m gonna marry that girl one of these days.”

“She know that?” Emma asks, “For that matter, she know you’re the one stalking her on Yelp?”

“Mmm, she knows. I’m just waiting for her brain to catch up. Absolutely on the Yelp thing though. She keeps coming in telling me to use better emojis but you really can’t beat the Lenny Face.”

“Truly, you are a romantic at heart.” Regina deadpans.

“Oh, don’t give me that, Regina. I’ve seen the likes on my reviews. You’re here for it.” Ruby teases, “Unfortunately, now’s not the time. We’ve done all we can do here so go home, get some sleep, remember to say goodbye to Killian and Ariel, follow them on Instagram, and keep your heads up! We’ll make it through, one way or another.”

It’s not until only Regina, Emma, Snow, and Ruby are left that Regina says, “While you and Emma gave great rallying speeches, do we actually have an alternative plan?”

“We don’t,” Ruby says, “but I do. Does anyone remember if there’s signal in the Australian outback?”

Emma has no idea what that means, and by the looks on Regina’s and Snow’s faces, neither do they.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Killian and Ariel's fate inspired by:  
> <https://www.instagram.com/captainlizclark/>


	14. Chapter 14

“Stop twitching, you’re giving me a headache.” Regina tells Emma. They’re both on the stoops again. Is this going to be their thing? Are they in a position to have things? Regina keeps giving Emma some really good beer, so maybe this is their thing.

“I can’t help it. It’s been two days and we haven’t seen any hint of Rumpelstiltskin. Aren’t you worried?”

Regina takes a long pull of her beer before answering, “Killian and Ariel left harbor last night. While there are a few suspicious images on Instagram, Mulan’s method of frying makes it difficult to tell exactly what kind of fish we were serving and without a dedicated witness, Rumpel doesn’t have enough to go on to really push the issue.”

Regina pauses thoughtfully, “Although, now that I think about it, we could have just served some other fish and told everyone it was arowana. I don’t think any of them would have noticed. It’s the principle of the matter, I suppose.”

Emma groans. From their stoop, they have a clear view of Granny’s. The sun high in the sky tells Emma that it’s nearing lunch, which means Ruby will soon wave them in to keep her company on her lunch break. She’s not said anything about her plan, only smiled mysteriously when asked and flounced away.

It’s aggravating, this entire street. It’s grown on her, Emma thinks. How annoying.

A taxi pulls up, obscuring the view of the diner. Ruby sidesteps and on cue, excitedly waves them over. “Another day of keeping watch beckons.” Regina says, getting up before Emma does. She reaches out a hand to help Emma up. Emma eyes it.

“The last time you did this, you threw me in front of the bus that is a suburban mom’s idea of good conversation.” She says.

Regina does the eyeroll, “Do you see any suburban moms around? Just get up, Emma, I think Ruby’s been waiting for something. Maybe today it’ll finally show.”

When they get to the diner Ruby rushes them into a booth. “Damn, Ruby, what’s the hurry?”

“My plan!” Ruby says gleefully, and that gets both their attention. “Do we need to do anything?” Regina asks, immediately all business.

“Nope! Just stay and enjoy the show, I think you two deserve it.”

The diner bell rings and in steps someone Emma’s never seen before. “Ruby! I came as soon as I could!” She calls out, in an unmistakably Australian accent.

“Belle!” Ruby says and Regina looks on with amusement, the kind that’s craftier than funny. Emma is still somewhat confused. Ruby guides Belle over to Regina and Emma, “You remember Regina, right? And this is Emma. She’s new here.”

“Of course, Regina, how lovely to see you again! I do wish it were under better circumstances, however.”

“Any circumstance is better than no circumstance, I suppose.” Regina says in response, a genuine smile on her face. Emma’s surprise knows very few bounds. “I did wonder, when Ruby mentioned Australia. How was it?”

“Did you know, that the wallabies are getting high off of opium?” She asks. “They’ve been responsible for the crop circles in Australia. Makes you wonder where our crop circles come from, doesn’t it? I’m doing an exhaustive documentary series on them. Crop circles, not wallabies. I mean, it was wallabies, but then the opium and crop circles thing happened and well, I’ve always believed in going with the flow.”

Emma did not know, nor did she know how this was relevant. As in reading her mind, Ruby winks and says “Wait for it.”

As if this were all a well-scripted scene, the diner bell chimes again. It fades out to the telltale clack of Rumpelstiltskin’s cane.

“Belle?” He asks.

Belle looks over. “Rumpel!”

“Belle, I thought-”

“What’s this I hear about you trying to outprice our neighbors out of their homes and businesses?”

“Belle, I can-”

“The nerve! I thought we’d talked about this, Rumpel, we don’t give up our neighbors for profit! It’s a good thing Ruby got in contact with me to tell me what was happening here! I had to get on the earliest flight I could to fly back here and set some sense into you again! Honestly, Rumpel, I go away for a few years and this is what happens?”

Everyone else forgotten, Belle makes a sweeping motion to get Rumpelstiltskin out the door, “We’ll talk later, everyone! It was nice to see you all again and nice to meet you too, Emma!” She calls behind her.

Everyone can hear her chastising Rumpelstiltskin as she ushers him into her taxi, nevermind that his car, chauffeur included, is parked right there.

“Fuck yeah.” Ruby says, pouring them all a shot of cheap vodka into shot glasses that Emma doesn’t remember being there before. “I fucking deserve this.” she says and drinks all three.

“Yes, well done.” Regina says, gesturing for the bottle to pour herself another drink.

“Wait, I’m still confused.” Emma says.

“Belle is Moe’s daughter.” Ruby says. You know Moe, right? Owns the bookstore that takes up three blocks? Must pay an exorbitant amount in rent but also probably pulls in an even more exorbitant amount of money?”

Only vaguely, but Emma nods so that Ruby will continue.

“Well, it’s more like he pulls in an exorbitant amount of money and pays a pittance in rent. It helps when your daughter’s dating the landlord.”

Emma chokes on the paint thinner at that.

“She’s been in Australia, said she needed to clear her head after college and figure out what she wanted to do with her life. We keep in contact sometimes but as it turns out, you need like, a literal phone brick to get calls out. I knew she was getting involved with some film crews she met while she was documenting some historical sites but I didn’t realize she decided that it was going to be wallaby opium addicts.”

“I’m surprised you managed to get her back so quickly.” Regina notes, as if that’s the most absurd thing about this.

“We were lucky that we caught her at a good time.” Ruby says, “They were between shoots. Apparently they got some really good footage of the wallabies making a crop circle.”

“Well, I’m glad it worked out.” Regina says, “Could you bring a menu? I think I’d like to try something new today.”

Emma is still gaping, “Wait. That’s it? We’re done?”

Both Regina and Ruby look at her, “Were you expecting something else? Belle’ll set Rumpel straight. She’s always had a way with him. I personally don’t see it, but she’s happy and I suppose that’s all that matters.”

Emma slumps. “It just seems, I don’t know, all very anticlimatic.”

Regina smiles at that, “Were you expecting a grand showdown in the middle of Main Street? Give the neighbors something to really talk about? Looking forward to decking Rumpel in his swarmy face?”

“Kind of, yeah, it seemed like it was building up to that.” Emma can’t quite keep the disappointment out of her face.

Regina pours Emma a shot, “I suppose that’s life for you. It’s not as fantastical or sensical as the books would have you believe, never seems to follow the storylines you expect it to, or have the purpose you wanted it to. You’ll have to write your own story, I’m afraid, your own happily ever after. Now drink up, Ruby’s had six. We’re slacking.”

Emma downs it. It doesn’t burn so much, not when she has Regina’s words to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you thought I was kidding about the wallabies:  
> <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8118257.stm>


	15. Epilogue

Emma passes along what she knows to Graham. At least, a very redacted version of it - there were smugglers in the Summerlands and now there are not, along with enough evidence for Graham to present to his bosses.

No one is particularly sad to see Graham make detective, although they make morbid bets as to when he’ll be sent back to the Summerlands. Emma’s got her money on six months. Regina took four because she’s two months more jaded than Emma.

“Good luck, Emma.” He tells her before he gets into his taxi. “You should think about staying - I think you’d make a good sheriff. In general, but also for the Summerlands. You’re good for it.”

And just like that, there’s nothing keeping Emma here anymore.

* * *

“We should have never let you get that Marketing and Advertising degree. Why aren’t you out there making six figures at an ad agency again?”

“Ten years of frat culture, enough sexual harassment to start my own harem, twice the work, half the pay, and none of the credit? I’ll pass, thanks. There are easier ways to get on Forbes’ list in our brave new world.”

“Uh, I don’t think it’s going to happen here.” Emma points out.

“Free rent and tips. Best way to get away with tax evasion is to never have reportable, taxable income.” Ruby counters.

“I still don’t see how working at Granny’s is going to get you on Forbes’” Emma pushes.

“Oh, I’m going to turn Granny’s into a nationwide brand and leverage Pinterest to turn us into the household name for homemade goods. Kind of like Martha Stewart without getting caught and the subsequent jail time.” Ruby says this nonchalantly, in the same tone like the time Emma had overheard Ruby telling Regina that the city finally fixed the ATM, the one shaped like a tree with fingers for roots and Regina had nodded like this was perfectly normal.

Emma just takes another sip of her drink. It’s her last night here, she might as well enjoy the company while she can and push aside the absurd parts for contemplation later.

* * *

“Regina, Pinterest is the future.” Emma says solemnly.

Regina frowns, “Have you been talking to Ruby?” She takes a tentative sniff, “Have you been drinking?”

“Yeah.” Emma says, “she came over with a six-pack to ‘help me drown out my sorrows’, drank all of it to ‘prevent me from making poor drunk Emma decisions’, and then proceeded to rifle through the liquor cabinet because she was ‘going to fill both of our quotas for bad decisions for the night’. Jokes on her though cause I had some too. Did you know she wants to take over the corporate world via Pinterest?”

“Yes, of course. We talked about it extensively when we decided Pinterest was going to be her best market. Come inside, you’re letting all the warm air out”

“You don’t mind?” Emma asks, mind a little hazy from the drinks. They make them strong in the Summerlands, she reasons.

Regina shrugs, “Better in here where I can keep an eye on you than to have you try to break in again.”

“Oh. Yeah. Did I say sorry for that? I did, right?” Emma asks.

“You did.” Regina confirms. Emma has to think for a bit. That’s not the right question.

“Did you accept my apology?” She tries again. Closer.

“I haven’t decided yet.” Regina answers honestly.

“Oh.” Emma says. “Okay. That’s okay. That would be for me, I think. I want it to be for you.”

“You’re oddly more thoughtful when you’re drunk.” Regina notes.

“Not drunk.” Emma corrects, she slurs the words a bit, to which Regina raises an eyebrow. “Just figured it was my last night here, we should be honest. We’ll be strangers again tomorrow.”

“Is that what you want?” Regina asks. Before Emma can answer, Regina continues, “Or did you come here hoping that I would ask you to stay?”

Emma hesitates. It’s as good as an answer. “Would you ask?”

Regina doesn’t answer right away, just sits there and thinks for a moment before getting up. “I think I’m going to make some hot chocolate, would you like some?”

That’s…not the answer Emma was expecting. “Sure?” she says.

Regina takes her time. There’s obviously some craft to her practised motions, but there’s also obviously some stall tactic happening here as well. She sets two cups down and sits down next to Emma. Emma is grateful for the warmth, both from the cup and from Regina next to her. They sit like that for a while. It’s kind of peaceful, the kind Emma thought she wouldn’t have again without the bitter company of her loneliness.

“I think,” Regina says, looking everywhere but Emma, “that you have to want to stay. That if we’re going to be anything good for each other, then we should just be that - good for each other.” She looks pensively into her cup, “I’ve seen too many soulmates fall into codependency because fate told them they should. I won’t have it happen to us. We’ll live two lives, whether it be together or apart, but I won’t have us living two half-lives. So no, Emma, I won’t ask you to stay.”

It kind of hurts to hear that, but Regina had done her the kindness of softening the blow with hot chocolate and some sensible words.

“But, I will ask, do you want to stay?”

And there’s the right question. Figures that Regina would reach it before Emma did. She looks down where their arms are set on the table, elbows just a hair away from knocking into each other. Emma’s right to Regina’s left, the tattoos viewed in the wrong order. And it kind of makes sense, what Regina’s said. Sort of, but Emma’s probably also kind of drunk.

Emma’s sobering mind quickly realizes that they are sitting very close on a table that also very clearly has enough room for Jesus in between.

And Emma gets it. This could be their happily ever after, a second chance for the both of them, written by their own hands. Her brain’s still catching up when she realizes that she’s kissed Regina.

It’s a small gesture, too small for all of Emma’s doubts and fears to be contained in it. It’s nothing anyone will write anything about, but Regina kisses her back and that’s everything.

“Yeah.” Emma says, “I think I’d like to stay.”

* * *

“No.” Emma groans when Regina barges into the guest bedroom. “It’s too early for this and I’m too hungover.” she whines.

“Why do I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.” Regina says, with no hint of mercy.

“Regina, Regina, babe, please.”

It’s the wrong thing to say because Regina throws her curtains open and rips the blanket away from Emma, “Call me ‘babe’ again, and you’ll be sleeping here for the foreseeable future without the curtains. I know how much you love our sun.”

“Regina, why. Why are we up so early.” Emma slurs, sleep-slow but also hungover.

“Because you assholes have been waking me up this early ever since you came back and now I’m used to it so now we both get to wake up with the sun and listen to Snow sing off-key to her flowers because it will help them grow.”

“Have I not suffered enough?” Emma asks, plaintively, “Just let me sleep in, please, Regina. I had to live with her, I know all about the singing and the sunlight.”

Regina rolls her eyes, “I’m making pancakes. If you wake up in time, you can have some.”

And shit, pancakes are to Emma what Hardy’s is to Regina.

* * *

Emma comes down just in time to see Regina finish stacking the pancakes.

“Impeccable timing.” Regina greets, “I see it took you just long enough to avoid helping me cook.”

“I’ll buy you Hardy’s?” Emma offers.

“Careful, that’ll only work so many times.”

Emma grins at that. Regina sighs fondly and gestures to the stack of pancakes. Emma spears through half of them and douses them with enough syrup and whipped cream to give her diabetes twice over. Regina winces.

Halfway through breakfast, Regina says, “Oh, yes, this reminds me, since you’re going to officially be a local now, let’s get you into the Facebook group.”

“Fu’k y’s” Emma says through a mouthful of pancakes. Regina pretends not to notice. Emma fishes out her smartphone. Fucking _finally_. Emma has that damn group favorited. She hits the ‘Join Group’ button and the notification that pops up almost immediately after is one of the mosts gratifying she’s ever seen.

“You’re welcome.” Regina says, but Emma’s busy scrolling through the group posts. There are an alarming number of her. She pettily emotes angrily at all of them. Let Leroy know she’s here and watching. Leroy messages her a middle finger because of course he would.

It’s not until she runs out of pancakes that she realizes “Wait, you’re not an admin in the group. How did you add me?”

“Snow White has had the same password ever since she made her Facebook account.”

Emma’s jaw drops. Regina taps her chin to close it, if only to avoid the sight of half-chewed pancakes. “So that’s how you knew!”

“Well, yes. Why bother with espionage when she’s is so open about it?”

“You’re terrible.” Emma says, conspiratorially.

“No worse than her.”

And Emma can concede that. “Lunch at Granny’s?” She asks, “I think Ruby had a bet going. I wonder who’ll win.”

“Ruby.” Regina says.

“You seen the books?”

“No. But Ruby owns the books.”

“Ah. You’re _all_ terrible.”

“Welcome to the neighborhood, Emma.” Regina says, getting up and gathering their plates. Emma tugs her down for a kiss when she passes by for good measure. It’s nice. A disgustingly domestic and nice lazy weekend morning. Even if Emma thinks it’s too early for such a thing.

A ping from her phone interrupts the moment. Emma looks down to see a notification from the Facebook group - it’s Ruby, who’s posted a blurry picture of them last night with the caption `*O SHIT WADDUP GET SUM BOI!!!!!* :V :V :V :V ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)`. It already has 20 likes and the number is still increasing as Emma reads. Emma peers over Emma’s shoulder to see what’s got her attention.

“I’m going to kill her.” Emma says.

Regina just laughs.

* * *

When Ruby was but barely 10, she spotted a runt of a pup hiding in the bushes on the way to school.

“Granny, Granny!” She cried, tugging on Granny’s sleeve. “Look!”

And Granny told her, “Looks like it got left behind, I’m sure the mother will come back for it soon enough,” and pulled her away.

Ruby waved as they left, “Bye! I hope you find your mom!”

But on the way home, Ruby spotted the same pup. “Granny, is its mom coming back?”

And Granny didn’t have a kind answer for Ruby, but Granny had also never been one to shy away from unkind answers either, “Guess not, Little Red. We’ll call the dogcatcher when we get home and they’ll find it a good home.”

“Can we be a good home?” Ruby asked. She’d always wanted a dog.

Granny thought about it, and said, “If you can convince it to come with you and promise to be responsible for it, I don’t see why not. It mess something up in the diner, you’re cleaning it up. And you’ll have to walk it and feed it and make sure you take good care of it. You don’t take home things you can’t take care of.”

And Ruby nodded solemnly, because it felt like that kind of a situation.

“Well, these bones aren’t going to sit around all night waiting. You come straight home when you’re done. Stay on the path.” Granny warned Ruby. She also asked one of the neighbors to watch Ruby because she wasn’t so naive as to think that Ruby had actually heard her, not when she was fixated on that pup.

Ruby had waited there all evening, long after the sun had set and the streetlights had wheezed lit. She’d tried coaxing it out with kind words and scraps from her lunchbox, but nothing she did could move the pup and every time she came close, it barked at her.

She flopped onto the street, “Don’t worry.” She assured, “I won’t let the pound take you. We’ll be good friends, right?”

The pup stared back at her.

* * *

“Ruby? You’d best be heading home now, Granny’s probably worried.” Clark said, shaking her awake. “Come on now, I’ll walk you home.”

She must have fallen asleep. She looks at the bush again, but the pup is gone. She jumps up but the pup is nowhere to be found. “Oh. Okay Mr. Clark.”

And that was that. She’d never gotten that pet dog, but thinks back on it and thinks that maybe if she hadn’t fallen asleep, she could have waited it out.

It’s what she remembers, watching Regina and Emma flit about each other on her lunch break. They remind her of pups, scared of a world they don’t quite know yet, and all she has to do is wait.

And they find each other, just like Ruby knew they would. This is not the universe Ruby would have picked for them, if she had a choice. Soulmates and fate are heavy things, but sometimes kind, and there are less kind worlds to live in, less kind lives to have settled into.

It’s what she remembers, watching Mulan make her deliveries in her company approved uniform, gloves and all. Today is Wednesday; she’s rounding the street and she’ll stop in here for lunch. She’ll look everywhere but Ruby’s hands, order a Po’Boy, and eat it in a corner. She tips well but avoids talking to Ruby too much for it to not be noticeable, and Ruby thinks, all she has to do is wait.

The bell rings, that’ll be her. “Mulan! How’s my favorite customer?” Ruby says with service-grade cheerfulness, already turning to make Mulan’s sandwich. “You’ll love today’s sandwich, lots of bacon for your deprived arteries. Paying by card today?”

“Yes.” Mulan says, it comes out a little strangled.

Ruby turns around to trade Mulan her sandwich for her card but her hand skitters when she spots Mulan’s gloves on the counter by the card, Mulan’s hands next to them, her right hand marked with-

“We’re going to have to talk about this one day.” Mulan says, stiff like she’s been practicing too long, “but I thought you should know.”

“I’ve known.” Ruby says, “I’ve also prepared some counterpoints about why it was totally the best idea when I was 14.” She pulls out a folded sheet from her wallet, the creases worn with age.

Mulan startles, this exchange not going according to her plan, “How long? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“As long as you needed. Sometimes, you just need to wait.” Ruby says, smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ATM is real:  
> <https://www.instagram.com/p/BMZhQnojOHz/>

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, friendos. This story (or lack thereof) was a bugbear to write which is maybe a sign that I should stop writing SQ so I think I'm peacing out now. Thanks again for all your kind words and time! Even though I am an anxious potato and terrible at being social, I appreciated every read, kudos, and comment y'all have left me. Sorry I couldn't say hi back.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Real Housewives of Storybrooke [ ART ]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12116754) by [mippippippi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mippippippi/pseuds/mippippippi)




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